


The Ties That Bind

by larxenethefirefly



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Background Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Custom Ryders, F/M, Jaal Ama Darav/Female Ryder | Sara - Freeform, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 08:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12008781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larxenethefirefly/pseuds/larxenethefirefly
Summary: When Ryder is called upon to fix a Remnant site on an Angaran colony, she suddenly finds herself in a hostile new universe. With her brother as Pathfinder and her team mistrustful of her intentions, she must find a way home before she is forever torn away from her family.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> My goodness, was this a labor of love.
> 
> I couldn't have done it without the help of my beta, thisnewjoe, who went above and beyond in helping me make this story more coherent and was extremely patient through my freak outs. He's an exceptional beta; I highly recommend him.
> 
> The banner and art is done by the amazing JoAsakura <3
> 
> Hope you all enjoy!

Her omni-tool is buzzing.

Alanna groans and ignores it, snuggling deeper into her pillow. Beside her Jaal mutters something in his sleep before settling back down again, his hand reflexively tightening the grip he has on her forearm before loosening it again. She smiles at the contact, just on the edge of sleep when her omni-tool buzzes again.

“It’s from the Moshae, Alanna,” SAM says, flickering on across the room. “She’s already sent three emails and a vidcon request.”

She grumbles then sits up, pushing her hair out of her face. “Does she know what time it is?”

“She is well aware, but seems desperate enough to ignore it.”

Alanna glances at Jaal, who is still sound asleep. “Fine. Let her know that I’ll be on vid-con shortly. Just let me get dressed first.”

“Understood.”

She rolls out of bed, knowing that Jaal could sleep through a tornado and still be fine. Her favorite sweatshirt was still on the floor where she left it, and she slips it on before rummaging around for pants. Deciding to forgo shoes—it is four in the morning, after all—she stumbles sleepily out of the room and drags herself up the ladder.

She hears Drack snoring from the Galley, and envies him.

The light indicating a pending call is flashing when she arrives, and after getting a rather massive yawn out of her system, she answers the call.

Across the table the Moshae flickers into existence. “Pathfinder Ryder, I am sorry to disturb you at this time,” she apologized. “Unfortunately, an incident has come up.”

“Is it the Kett?” Alanna asks, already bringing up her omnitool to alert Kallo to change coordinates.

The Moshae shakes her head. “No, not this time. It is Remnant-related.”

“As you know, we have been working to re-establish connections with colonies we thought lost to the Scourge. Recently, I have made contact with one—a highly secretive group, even more so than the sages of Mithrava. Only now that the Vault they have been guarding is threatening their Daar are they willing to work with me.”

"With Meridian online again, I thought all the vaults were working properly”

The Moshae gives a small smile. “This is not that type of Vault. Far as I can tell, it is… more of a laboratory. The Angara here are not very willing to tell me much more about it, only that I need to fix it. Except I cannot access it, and it has taken me this long to convince them to allow you to come.”

“Let me guess: they don’t trust aliens?” Alanna chuckles.

“Don’t trust outsiders, period,” the Angara replies. “You are permitted to bring two companions with you, so long as they remain weaponless.”

“So what exactly am I dealing with here?” She crosses her fingers in the hopes that it will be a simple job. She has plans with her brother for lunch tomorrow, and he’s often professed that it is the one highlight of his day. Truth be told, it is the highlight of hers, as well.

“It is best if you see for yourself,” the Moshae replies with a shake of her head. “It is… difficult to explain.”

Well, that isn’t cryptic at all. Still, with the Kett scrambling to organize after the Archon’s defeat, and Voeld being reclaimed by the Resistance, Alanna isn’t nearly as busy as she once was. She and the other Pathfinders have no doubt that the Kett will rally again soon, and tare already making plans to strike back at them. New ships for the other Pathfinders are being built, outposts are given extra supplies and guards, communications are being updated and increased. With the Angara’s help the Initiative’s technical capabilities are already increasing by leaps and bounds, and Alanna knew that when the Kett attacked, the Intitiave and its allies would be ready.

Until then, though, she finds herself with more time on her hands than before. If the Moshae needs her help, well, she’s more than happy to give it.

“I’d be honored to help, Ambassador,” she grins. “I’m sure Tann will be happy to have me away from the Nexus for a while, too.”

“Then I’ll send you the coordinates. See you soon, Pathfinder.”

Her image flickers out, and Alanna slumps over the table as her body is reminded of the hour. After a moment, however, she turned and headed back to her room. “Has Kallo gotten the coordinates, SAM?”

“Yes, Alanna. He’s adjusting the course now. We will be arriving in twelve hours.”

She nods. “Got some time, then. Well, let’s get to work.”

By the time the rest of the crew was awake and made aware of the course change, Alanna had prepared the mission briefing to the Nexus, let Nick know the circumstances of her cancelling lunch, and prepared the supplies they might need. Joining her planetside will be PeeBee and Jaal. Liam and Cora will be on standby, monitoring communications and ready in case Alanna needs to switch out her ground team. 

“So we don’t know what we’ll be in for?” Cora asks, sounding concerned.

Alanna grimaces. “I know, I’m not too happy either, but the members of this Daar don’t like giving up their secrets. SAM will be transmitting everything over the comms, so you can all stay in the loop.”

“Don’t think they’ll be too happy if they find out,” Vetra commented.

“Hey, if it means you’re there to pull my bacon out of the fire, I’ll take the risk,” Alanna shrugs. Surely even the colony could figure out that a dead Alanna was an unhelpful Alanna. “Kallo, how long until arrival?”

_“Three hours, Ryder.”_

She nods. “Alright. PeeBee, Jaal, I expect to see you in the airlock then. Dismissed.”

Her crew wanders off. PeeBee scurries back to her room in delight at the potential discoveries, but Jaal stays. “You should get some sleep before you arrive,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. “SAM told me how long you have been awake.”

“Traitor,” she mutters half heartedly, leaning forward so her forehead rests against his chest. “But I’m fine, Jaal. Malfunctioning does not mean death bots, so for all we know it could be a simple integration.”

Jaal makes a humming noise, but doesn’t seem convinced. Alanna isn’t either. If the Moshae is concerned, then it isn’t something that will be easily fixed. Still, a good puzzle is welcome over being idle, or listening to Tann ramble and complain for the umpteenth time this week.

“Have you told your brother about the change of plans?” Jaal finally asks.

“Yes,” Alanna murmured sadly. “He hasn’t replied yet; probably still in physical therapy. Or sleeping. He’s chafing under Harry’s strict regime, but it means he’ll be in perfect shape for when he does join the team.”

Jaal wraps her up in his arms even further. “I am looking forward to that day. I know you cannot be truly happy until the other half of your heart is safe and well.”

She leans into the embrace, drawing comfort from his solid presence. After a moment she pulls away, kissing him briefly before moving to leave the room. “You’d best be ready,” she says as she exits. “We need our Angaran diplomat in case things go south with the locals.”

He chuckles, and retrieves his weapon from the tech lab. Alanna goes to her room, but instead of napping like Jaal suggested, she takes the opportunity to pull fresh clothes from her closet and take a shower. She uses Kallo’s codes to linger in the shower longer than she should, stealing a bit of Jaal’s scented soap in the process. He always got a sappy smile whenever she does this. If she wants to feel closer to her Angaran boyfriend while working in potentially hostile Angaran space, well, that was for her alone to know.

When she is finally dressed and ready for action, she heads to the armory. Cora had laid out Alanna’s gear, and is checking Peebee’s diagnostics while the Asari twitches and complains.

“Just stay still…” Cora snaps, but Peebee twists out of her grasp, sticking out her tongue and retreating to the other side of the room. The human mutters something uncomplimentary and stalks towards an unsuspecting Jaal.

Alanna pulls her armor on, checks the seals several times, and performs a systems check. The armor is still new, a gift from the Nexus as a thank you after her original Pathfinder armor had been damaged during the fight against the Archon and his pet Architect. That armor is now proudly displayed in Pathfinder hall across from Tann’s desk, despite her attempts to get it removed.

“I don’t suppose these new Angara will welcome us with open arms?” Peebee asks as Alanna tucks her helmet under her arm and heads towards the bridge. Since Cora had made Jaal the new focus for her meddling, she had deemed it safe to come out from cover.

“We can probably expect the same hospitality we got on Aya the first time we visited,” she replies. Across the room Jaal shoots her a look, pleading for rescue from Cora’s invasive investigation, but Alanna smirks and waves. Cora is worried about what they might encounter and Jaal is safe from harm.

Peebee blows a raspberry. “Well, great. At least this time during first contact they won’t be deprived of my amazing self.”

“Keep it professional, Peebee.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

By the time Jaal escapes Cora’s clutches and their weapons had been obtained, Kallo had them approaching the landing zone. Strange Angaran shuttles that glowed with green Remnant tech were spotted every so often guiding them to their destination, although they didn’t seem space-worthy. The construction seems more cobbled together than anything, or perhaps maintained by someone who doesn’t quite understand what they are doing. Jaal’s fascinated eyes followed them down, and she knew that whatever questions she has will be answered by Jaal himself before they were finished.

It did not surprise them to be greeted with an armed guard when they disembarked. While distinctly Angaran, their armor and weapons are clearly adapted from Remnant tech. She isn’t sure whether it is reverse engineered or has been integrated into their equipment over time, but she understands why the Moshae is so concerned with helping this lost colony. Even if all Alanna had to do was to interface and leave, the things the Angara could learn here could mean the difference between life and death for not only the Resistance, but the Initiative as well.

The Moshae is front and center alongside the man who must have been the colony’s leader. He is dressed in green robes and a glowing blue circlet that has Peebee’s complete attention. “Pathfinder Ryder,” the Moshae begins, stepping forward. Alanna meets her with the traditional Angaran handshake. “Thank you for joining us.”

“The honor is mine,” she says. “Just let me know how I can help.”

“Suwaan, the Elder, can explain better than I can.”

The man in green huffs and inspects Alanna critically. “Sjefa has said you are part of an Angaran family,” He said, eyes narrow as he looks her over critically. His accent reminds her of her grandparents when they spoke Korean. “We require proof of this claim before you enter the shrine.”

Jaal steps forward, but Alanna stops him with a hand on his arm. “Of course,” she replies, and pulls a necklace through the neck opening in her armor. 

It was a simple light blue pendant with Jaal’s family honorific etched onto its surface in silver. Having it in her possession is a formal declaration that she will soon be a family member. This kind of declaration is an ancient and infrequently practiced ritual among his people now, but Alanna likes letting the galaxy know that they belong together wherever she goes.

Suwaan inspects it, then looks at Jaal. “You claim this alien as your _taoshay_?”

“Yes,” Jaal declares. He looks ready say more, but stays silent. He must sense that Suwaan isn’t much for conversation.

The Elder grunts once more before turning. “Follow,” he instructs. The three trail behind him, with the soldiers forming ranks around them.

Suwaan leads the procession to a rocky outcropping, where a natural cave is revealed behind an overhanging cluster of bright pink vines. They brush these to the side and are held in the sickly yellow light flowing down the cavern walls, bathing the party in an eerie glow as they take seemingly random twists and turns downwards.

Finally they come to the entrance of a vault. Instead of the expected gravity well to another section of the structure, there is a large room with a single console standing idle in the center of the room. The air seems heavier in here, as though they have stepped into a cloud, and a haze surrounds them, partially obscuring dozens of tiny, flickering white motes of light that electrify the air. Jaal reaches out with with his own bioelectricity and the motes flock to him and send a concentrated electrical pulse into his hand. He shakes the appendage with a rueful expression.

“It is sick,” Suwaan says. “We are tasked to care for it, and we cannot heal it.”

Alanna exchanges a glance with her companions. Peebee looks concerned, Jaal alarmed. She turns to the Elder, curious. “You were tasked?”

“By the creators,” Suwaan replies, and Jaal stiffens. “They told us to protect this site until their return.”

“So you know about the Jardaan,” Alanna says softly. 

Suwaan looks unimpressed. “We call them our progenitors. If you can heal this place than we are willing to share what they left.”

_No pressure_ , Alanna thinks, stepping forward to the console. Her scanner shows that it has no power, though there is a single, dead, power line that extends through a solid wall. She bites back a sigh.

“We need glyphs,” she says. “Do you have a knowledge of the rest of these tunnels?”

“Indeed.”

The room the glyph is in is mercifully close, and full of remnant technology. Peebee is practically salivating at the chance to study them, but the guards pus her to keep up with the main group. Alanna had hoped that this would be an easy job, but she recognizes the signs that tell her the Asari is going to get antsy, and soon.

“Okay, SAM, ready whenever you are,” Alanna says, and activates the console.

Nothing seemed to happen, but then there was a strange pressure in her head, the symbols flashing before her, and a map unfurls in her mind’s eye.

This is always the hardest part of interfacing: thinking about the solution without letting stray thoughts get in the way. It requires total concentration, and the first time she had interfaced she had nearly passed out from the strain. Without SAM, the pain had been intense, and now that the AI was back in her head where he belonged, she wondered why she had considered this hard.

“Password accepted,” SAM announces when the glyphs are solved. “Interfacing…”

Peebee’s voice cuts through the atonal music of the remnant technology that echoes throughout Alanna’s head. “What’s happening?”

Alanna looks up to see the haze coalescing, the white motes sparking and zipping about the cloud erratically. “SAM?” she asks, alarm creeping into her voice.

“The vault is activating. The cloud seems to be the standard routine for this location. The purpose is still unclear.”

Jaal turns to Suwaan. “Is this normal?”

The older Angaran looks… concerned. “This is unexpected,” he speaks slowly. “But we have only ever seen the site minimally functional before.”

“Alanna,” Jaal warns, uneasily. “You should probably stop.”

The mental pressure sharply increases, nearly buckling her knees. “SAM! What’s going on?” Alanna demands through the pain.

“The laboratory is being activated,” SAM announces, and she thinks he sounds worried. “Alanna, you need to disengage.”

“I am trying,” she grits through her teeth, forcing herself to ignore the glyphs. They fade from her mind, but before she can pull away, the cloud surges and engulfs her.

She hears screaming, and the music swells and clashes violently within her. Then everything fades to black.


	2. Chapter 2

The past is a curious thing.

It is set in stone. It is what happened, and it is done. Yet it could have easily gone another way. Anyone could have made a different choice, become a different person, and with a little change in the past, suddenly everything you know can be different. A man chooses a life with more risk and gains a family, but seals his fate for an early grave. A woman goes to university instead of taking over her mother’s store, and discovers a breakthrough in eezo research. Twins grin and give each other a final hug, and get into different cryo pods. 

In another universe, Nick Ryder woke up while his sister Alanna did not. In another time, Nick became the Pathfinder, struggling to find a place to call home so that his sister could wake up to their previous dream and not his constant nightmare.

It has been a hard few weeks on Voeld. He wasn’t built for the cold—hates it, in fact—so trekking across the icebox of a planet was hell. Vetra didn’t make things any better, since Turians are even more susceptible to the cold than humans, so his usual ground team had been upset even more. Not to say he doesn’t like Jaal—the Angaran can hold his own, and they have developed a rapport since Havarl that means they are comfortable enough around each other to be in the same room without excess conversation. But he isn’t Cora’s biotic mastery, and PeeBee isn’t Vetra’s tactical juggernaut.

He conceded that at least things are never boring with them around, as Peebee and Jaal playfully bicker about Jaal’s native food. Nick mostly tunes them out, focusing instead on the navpoint that SAM has given him for the vault’s location, but every so often he hears one’s laughter or a random teasing remark and be drawn into their conversation. More than once he has defended the sanctity of macaroni and cheese, which broke his heart and would have his sister gloating in triumph were she here.

“Well, here it is,” Nick announces when they finally reach the Vault. “Let’s warm this icecube up so we can go and rescue the Moshae already.”

“The Resistance is nearly ready,” Jaal agrees. “They are just waiting on our word.”

“Well, we shouldn’t keep them waiting then.”

Peebee rolls her eyes. “Yes we can.”

By now, even Jaal knows not to take her seriously, although his hands do tighten slightly on the rifle in his hands.

They descend into the vault, but unlike the past, the cold continues to seep into their armor, getting even more pressing as they went. “Guess heat still rises here too,” Nick mutters, as SAM gives him an ETA on his life support running out. 

At least the hostile bots are bots are familiar, but the firefight does little to warm them. Nick begins to think this planet is a lost cause before he spots a console that still has power.

“This sucks,” Peebee announces as Nick quickly activates the shield. She only pauses to join them in their sigh of relief as the temperature in their vicinity increases before continuing. “I want to explore, not go from cover to cover.”

Nick kills the last of the Assemblers and glances at her. “If you want to freeze to death, go ahead. I give you about five minutes, at the most.”

She blows a raspberry and runs off to pick a fight with more remnant.

They dart from cover to cover, fighting where they have to, and letting Peebee have her moments of cannibalizing the robots when they don’t. She stores a few pieces taken from Observers that she insists are important, although when asked about their use, she changes the topic and insists they press on.

Nick lets it slide. What his team gets up to in their personal time was none of his business. She could be building a giant fire-breathing remnant dinosaur and he wouldn’t bat an eye. He’d probably be too in awe to do anything.

“Activating this is the console that will start the cleansing process,” SAM announces. “You may want to look around before you begin.”

Peebee mutters uncomplimentary things, shivering even in the remnant shielding that Nick had activated. Jaal looks none the worse for wear, although he frowns at a new hole in his rofjinn, courtesy of a particularly clingy Breacher. Nick sighs; looks like things will be cut short again today.

 

“Alright, SAM. Let’s get this over with.”

He interfaces, and the equations flow over him. He used to do logic puzzles like this to pass the time while guarding the relay—sudoku, crossword puzzles, and the like. This one is a cross between sheet music and an equation: He simply has to add the missing notes. The vault on Havarl had been more like a crossword, but he had to fill in colors rather than letters.

When he finishes, it takes him a second to regain his focus, but he is still ready to run from the purification field.

He was, at least, except that the purification field doesn’t activate. 

“Is it broken?” Peebee asks, looking around cautiously.

Jaal frowns and starts moving away. “Something isn’t right,” he says. “The air… it feels wrong. Like static.”

“I don’t think-” Nick begins, but the air erupts into music and motes of light surround him. The haze plays havoc with his senses, and the pain that washes through him is so intense that he starts hallucinating. After all, bodies didn’t just appear out of nowhere.

“Oh god! It’s a dead person!” Peebee shouts.

Or maybe they sometimes do.

Nick is already moving to the figure laying still on the floor in front of the console, the music and pain vanishing as soon as he stopped interfacing. “SAM! Are they alive?”

“There are life signs. Ryder, there is something you need to know-”

He doesn’t stop and rips off the helmet. His breath leaves him when he sees the face. “How is this possible?” he demands, staring down at his sister.

She appears to be sleeping, just as she was the last time he saw her in the medical bay. Here, now, she is fully armored and equipped. She’s wearing Initiative armor, no doubt about it, but... When did she wake up? Had Harry cleared her for duty?

“Ryder! We got incoming!” Peebee screams, and they are startled to see the purification field forming.

He gathers his sister and turns to the exit. “Let’s get out of here. I have questions for Harry.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alanna wakes to antiseptic odors and the hum of a mass effect core.

Wasn’t she just in a Remnant vault, helping the Angara? But then there were the sounds, that smoke...

Memories flood back to her, and her eyes fly open to take in the jarring sight of the Tempest’s medical bay. 

Lexi is at her console, and notices Alanna’s movement. She stands and cautiously steps closer. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine. Lexi, what happened?” Her throat is dry and her voice breaks as she speaks, and Alanna wonders how long she was asleep. Certainly long enough for her equipment to be removed- she is only in her undersuit, and the lack of a hospital gown indicates that whatever happened, it wasn’t troubling enough for a full examination.

In response to her words, the Asari jerks back, surprised. Alanna frowns at her reaction, then her eyes widen in alarm. “Are the others okay? I know Jaal was the closest, was he-”

“Just calm down,” the doctor replies, coming back to herself and raising her omnitool. “Jaal is fine. We’re just worried about you. I’ll call your brother and we’ll get this sorted.”

Alanna opens her mouth to ask about Nick when the doors slide open and he enters, stony-faced. “No need, Lexi. SAM alerted me.”

“Nick?” Alanna asks, surprised. “What are you doing here?” When did Harry clear him for active duty? Panic shoots through her as she wonders again just how long she has been asleep.

Nick crosses his arms, suspicion evident on his face. “I should ask you the same question, considering that—right now—you are also in a coma on the Hyperion.”

She stares at him in disbelief, then at the professional doctor-face Lexi puts on to reassure her patients, at odds with the steel in her eyes and the tension in her shoulders. “What are you talking about?” she asks, faintly. “Nick, when I last saw you, you were complaining about PT and the terrible nutrient smoothies they kept shoving at you.”

“Two hours ago, I was in a remnant vault to restore Voeld’s atmosphere,” Nick says, voice clinical. “I interfaced, but instead of a purification field, a strange cloud spat out the body of my sister. I had to run from certain death carrying her, terrified that she had been injured or captured somehow. When I called Harry from the vidcon, imagine my surprise when I found out she was right where she should be, sound asleep in medical. So, tell me: who are you, and why do you wear my sister’s face?”

The gears in Alanna’s brain screech to a halt as they try to process the news. “SAM?” she asks on their private channel. “How is this possible?”

SAM doesn’t respond.

In one frantic moment, she realizes that she doesn’t feel him there. The ever-present buzz at the back of her brain, barely noticeable, but constant, reassuring, is gone. It is eerily similar to the silence after the Archon took the Hyperion; the uncomfortable, empty feeling when something vital is missing from you. “I don’t understand,” she stutters, her mind whirling with questions as panic begins to sink in. “The last thing I remember, I was on an Angaran colony world trying to figure out why the remnant site they were guarding was working improperly. Then I woke up here.”

“If I may?” SAM’s voice breaks over the intercom. “Ryder, when I was interfacing with the vault, I noticed an interruption in the flow of data; a new subroutine had been added. I presume this is what allowed this version of your sister to arrive here.”

“Arrive here?” Nick asks.

“Yes. The cloud you found her in was hiding a wormhole. If my calculations on the data I gathered are correct, it would support her words. She is your sister, and she comes from a different universe.”

SAM’s declaration leaves the room in a stunned state. “But… how?” Alanna asks. 

“She can’t be,” Nick argues. “My sister is still on the Hyperion! This isn’t my Alanna!”

His words sting more than she was able to show.

If the AI could shrug, Alanna guessed he would have. “I have yet to gather more data. That is all I know.”

Lexi’s frown is intense. “If what SAM says is true, then the consequences are… troubling. We don’t know what sort of effects inter-dimensional travel can have on the body, nor how different her universe is to ours. We could already be exposed to new microbial life that we haven’t adapted for.”

“I’m sure SAM would have alerted us if there was a danger,” Nick retorts, still looking a bit dazed. “Lexi, keep her here under observation. I… need to brief the crew.”

He staggers off, but by the time the door closes behind them he has already straightened, the cool mask of professionalism sliding over his face. His ‘Alliance pose’, as Alanna calls it: The one he adopts whenever he is trying to channel their father, in an effort to either impress their old man or to detach himself from a situation that is threatening to overwhelm him. It is his self-defense mechanism, one that Alanna hates with a passion.

This time, however, she barely notices, still struggling to process the bomb SAM has just dropped on them.

“How is this possible?” she finally asks.

Lexi glances over at her. “I’m a doctor, not a physicist. How am I supposed to know?”

“I need to get back,” she says, sitting upright. “I need to-”

She stops herself. She needs to get back, but how? The colony won’t accept her if she just shows up, and without access to her Tempest’s navigation logs she doesn’t even know where on the planet it is. After all, the Moshae had taken weeks to gain permission and a navpoint. 

“I need to see the Moshae,” she realizes. “I need to get to Aya.”

Lexi blinks in surprise. “We can’t do that,” she gently warns.

Alanna waves her hand dismissively. “Just pretend I’m your Alanna. The Moshae will see Nick- she owes him, after all, and after hearing my story I’m sure she’ll agree. All I have to do is reactivate the vault, and I’ll be out of your hair.” Alarm crosses her features as she realizes one major obstacle. “Please tell me he picked her for the ambassador position. This would be so much harder if he didn’t.”

The Asari furrows her brows. “Ambassador?”

“Oh.” She blinks. “Have you not returned to Meridian? I didn’t realize you were still ferrying people from the Nexus. Well, I can always talk to Nick about it.”

“We aren’t going to Meridian,” Lexi says. “We’re in orbit over Voeld.”

Alanna pauses. “Voeld?” She wracks her brain. “Why would Tann send you to Voeld?”

Lexi is quiet for a moment. “Alanna,” she asks, gently—she has the doctor expression on her face again—“what day do you think this is?”

“Before I woke up here?” she asks. At Lexi’s nod, she replies, “June eleventh, 2820.”

“Ah.” Lexi puts down her datapad and stares at Alanna intently. “This does pose a problem. Not only are you in a different universe, you have apparently time travelled. For us, it is August third on the earth calendar, in the year 2819.”

The implications take a moment to register, but when they do Alanna falls back into bed in disbelief. “How is this possible?” she repeats.

“I think it best that you stay here until this gets sorted,” Lexi says, not unkindly, and Alanna merely nods weakly before curling up on the cot.

Lexi takes the lull in conversation to scan her and putter about the medbay before leaving, likely to give Nick the results of her findings. She knows what the verdict will be. She was his sister, if a little dehydrated and borderline anemic, since it was the same thing the doctor last complained about.

No. The same thing her Lexi last complained about. The thought sends shivers through her- it’s something she doesn’t know if she can get used to.

Alanna relishes the quiet for once. It gives her time to think, to process, and more importantly, to plan. She is a person of action, and lying idle makes her restless and irritable. She leaves the bed only once to take one of Lexi’s blank datapads, and starts a list of everything she knows.

Fact One: She has somehow been transported to an alternate universe where she is the one who ended up in a coma and her brother became the Pathfinder. She is proud of him, of course she is. She has always known he would have been better suited to the position than she is. But it makes things harder in the here and now.

Fact Two: It is clear no one really believes her. SAM seems to be open to the possibility, so it is probably best to start with him. He will know better than anyone the circumstances that brought her here.

Fact Three: She still doesn’t know how she got here, or how to get back. Her best bet is to enlist the help of the Moshae, although whether she will believe Alanna is a different matter entirely.

Fact Four: No one here knows what is in store for them. And Alanna knows, without a doubt, that she cannot tell them. The second she does, everything will change, and for all she knows it will end up worse. Dozens of lives had been lost during the battle for Meridian; if things change, more could be lost. It is a risk she isn’t willing to take.

Fact Five: There was a possibility that she might not even be able to get home. 

She erases it before she can even finish it.

Fact Five, version 2: If she doesn’t earn their trust soon, she is in for a very lonely time. At least she knows what they like, and can use that to her advantage.

Fact Six: She must avoid Jaal at all costs, for obvious reasons.

With her list complete, she hides it under her pillow and settles back into bed. All that is left to do is wait. 

Lexi comes in and out of the medical bay with busy work.

Peebee walks by one too many times to be coincidence—no doubt the Asari is trying to pry, and her fear of Lexi keeps her from actually crossing the threshold.

Drack stomps in once with a thunderous expression on his face, and demands to know what she is playing at.

“I just want to go home,” she replies.

He grunts. “Think that’ll be best for all of us.” Drack eyes her a bit more. “I think you’re telling the truth, though. It’d be a strange thing to lie about.”

And he leaves, yelling at Vetra about whether she has “hunted down a supply of actual meat yet.”

She was left alone after that with the exception of Lexi, who stayed at her terminal filling out reports. Alanna tried talking, but Lexi always turned it around so that Alanna was talking about herself, so she gave up after a while. Patient/Doctor confidentiality might be in effect, but the last thing Alanna wanted was to be reminded of what she might have lost.

She knows the moment Nick leaves to rescue the Moshae: The hush that falls over the Tempest, the focus before the fight, and then the eerie silence that followed when the ship emptied. Nick will have pulled out all the stops; he had been formally trained by the Alliance after all, and so he took no chances. More than likely, Jaal, Drack, and Liam were with him, with Cora heading the second team, and with the Angara resistance acting as distraction for both groups. Suvi was monitoring comms, and Lexi—yep, there she went; heading to the docking bay with her medkit.

Alanna counts fifteen seconds before she got out of bed and headed to her—no, Nick’s—room. She gives the override command, then locks it back behind her. “SAM, override Charlie India Charlie.”

His interface lights up. “Alanna.”

She marches over. “Listen, I know the team has doubts, and it’s a confusing situation for me too. But I need you to believe me. Right now, Nick and the team are assaulting the Kett base. They are going to find out things about the Angara that will shake the very foundation of their war, and they are going to come back with two very heartbroken Angara. And while I wish I could change things, I can’t. But at least I can tell you so you can believe me.”

So she tells him everything. The revelations, the battle for the Moshae, her heartbreaking decision to keep the facility despite all it represented so that a few could be free. SAM is quiet during the entire tale—while most of his processes are helping Nick in battle, her override ensures that a small part of him is aware of her.

In all honesty, she wasn’t sure it would work; the codes are only useful to the commanding officer, and that is Nick. SAM being here now either means that he is humoring her, or is acting on Nick’s orders.

Either way, she is grateful.

“Your tale confirms my hypothesis of an alternate universe,” he finally says when she is done. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

She heaves a sigh and buries her face in her hands. She has taken a seat during the story, and it felt too much like home; the model ships, SAM’s comforting presence, even the family portrait from before Ellen’s disease on the desk. If she just focuses on those things, she can pretend that she really is home, and that the discrepancies aren’t there. The meticulously cleaned desk, the jacket on the back of the chair, their father’s dog tags reverently hung on the monitor. It all screams _her brother_ , contrasting Alanna’s usual style of deliberate disarray. “I just… need someone to believe me,” she sighs. “I’m all alone in this, and more than anything I want to spare Nick from all of it, but he’s the Pathfinder, not me. I can’t…” her voice trails off, and she curls her shaking hands.

“You thought this was your burden to bear,” SAM finishes. “And now you find yourself with a title that is no longer yours, knowledge that is dangerous to have, and a family that isn’t yours.”

She gives a wobbly smile to the glowing interface. “Exactly.”

The interface shifts for a moment as SAM processes. “I will endeavour to support you in the future,” he finally says. “But my first priority is the Pathfinder.”

“I know, and I would never ask you to choose me over anyone else here,” she agrees hastily. “You don’t even have to tell Nick about this conversation if you don’t feel like it’s necessary. But I had you in my head once upon a time, and… well, I miss it,” she admits.

The AI is quiet, but then a gentle buzz starts in her brain as her implant is activated again. “I cannot interface completely with you,” SAM tells her through the device. “But I can make you less lonely.”

Alanna could have cried. “Thank you,” she whispers. 

She stays there, curled up in the chair with SAM’s comforting presence, until it is time to return to the Medbay.

SAM even warns her when Lexi is preparing to return.


	3. Chapter 3

The Moshae sleeps for most of the return trip to Aya, her body recovering from the physical and mental torture the Archon and his lackeys had subjected her to. More than once, Lexi has to lock the door to prevent Jaal from hovering, which Alanna appreciates. She still doesn’t know how to act around him, how to even approach him since he sees her as a stranger, at best. The few times Moshae Sjefa is awake, Alanna makes small talk, and she seems to appreciate the normalcy over everyone else’s fretting.

Alanna is cleared by Lexi as being perfectly healthy a few days later, if a little stressed, and not at all contagious. 

The problem is: What to do with her?

“We don’t have room left,” Cora frowns. She always frowns when it comes to Alanna. “All available spaces are taken.”

“Just give me a cot in the docking bay,” she says quietly. “I can sleep there.”

Nick takes a moment to respond. “Not exactly the…. most comfortable,” he finally admits, grudgingly. 

“I’m the intruder here,” she shrugs. “And you know I can fall asleep anywhere. There was a time on Kadara where—” she pauses. “Never mind. Point is: I’ll be fine. And you’ll have three pairs of eyes on me at any point during the night.”

With lack of any better options, Nick grants her request. Vetra even manages to drag a footlocker from somewhere, and Alanna stores her armor and weapons in it carefully. Even if the lock doesn’t quite work and the side is dented, it is better than she anticipated. The old fashioned padlock ensures that it is at least a little hard to get into.

To her surprise, the Moshae finds her late the night before they arrive at Aya. She leans heavily on the borrowed cane, and her bioluminescence is still weak, but Alanna knows better than to offer her help.

“I was getting restless,” she says at Alanna’s look. “And for all that your doctor swore she’d tie me down if I so much as moved from the bed, she’s still sound asleep.”

A smile twitches at Alanna’s lips. “She just came off a three day work session. She’s not going to be awake for at least twelve hours.”

The Moshae chuckles. “I know where she’s coming from. When I was younger…” she shakes her head and sits down on a nearby crate, the cane almost disdainfully cast aside. “Sorry. I didn’t come here to talk about an old woman’s past.”

“Old? You have plenty of life left in you,” Alanna replies, and they both shared a soft laugh. After a moment, she hesitantly asks, “Is it okay if I ask for your help?”

The Angara studies her. Even with the small camaraderie they have established in the medbay, Alanna knows the Moshae still doesn’t quite trust her. “Depends on what it is. I am indebted to everyone for rescuing me, but the Pathfinder already made it clear that he wants to visit Aya’s Vault. What more could you want?”

Alanna shakes her head. “This doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s... a personal problem.” She considers her words before speaking. “Do you know the Remnant technology is capable of interdimensional travel?”

The Moshae looks fascinated. “The civilization who left behind the artifacts certainly seemed advanced enough to study it. Some of the items we found suggested that..” she pauses, and her gaze sharpens. “But how could you possibly know about that? Even my students don’t know.”

“Because I was transported here by Remnant technology,” Alanna replies, “when I answered your call for help.”

It is depressing how routine it felt to repeat her story. Lexi and Nick both had grilled her for hours after he had returned and while the Moshae had slept, and his thinly repressed hostility had her curling further and further up in quiet despair. The Moshae, on the other hand, is fascinated and she finds herself telling the Moshae details that she hasn’t told the others—the planet of the colony, names, she even pulls up —on her surprisingly functional omni-tool—the emails the other Moshae had sent her. The Angara listens quietly but intently, and when Alanna is done she nods once. 

“Can I see the pendant?” she asks.

Alanna hesitates, but reluctantly agrees. Slowly, she removes her necklace out from under her shirt, and pulls it over her head.

The Moshae gently lifts it from Alanna’s palm and traces the symbols on it, surprise in her eyes. “I never thought Jaal would settle down,” she admits. “I had always hoped, but he was always so lost, unsure of himself.” She avoids eye contact, focusing instead on the pendant, and Alanna knows what she means. She is worried about seeing Jaal hurt.

“He’s everything to me,” Alanna states firmly, her eyes unwavering from the woman across from her. “And it hurts to see him now and know that he isn’t my Jaal, and he never will be.”

The Moshae relaxes and finally looks at her. “I assume you’ll want to keep this from your companions?” She hands the pendant back to Alanna, who immediately slips it back around her neck and under her shirt, hidden once more.

“Yes. They don’t trust me, and if they knew…” she shrugs, helpless. “The best thing is to leave as soon as I can.”

She nods. “I will help you.” The Moshae reaches forward and clasps their hands together. “It will be a victory in itself to reestablish contact with a lost colony, and agreeing to help you meet them is a small price to pay.” 

“Thank you,” Alanna says gratefully. For once, something is going right. “I’ll send you my contact information.”

Moshae Sjefa looks amused. “It will be nice to have correspondence with another species. I’m afraid I have many questions about your culture and history.”

“Ask away, Moshae,” she grins. “I’m on house arrest for the foreseeable future, so I can answer any question you throw at me.”

“Nonsense, I’ll insist that you join us tomorrow when we return,” Sjefa replied. “I have tests to run on you, after all. It’s not everyday you meet an interdimensional time traveler.”

Alanna groans and collapses back onto her cot. “Great. More tests.”

The Moshae merely laughs in response, and when she leaves Alanna for the night the cane lies discarded on the floor.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Despite the support of both the Mosahe and SAM, Alanna doesn’t make much headway in gaining the trust of the rest of the crew. Nick lets her wander around Kadara Port, but she isn’t allowed on the away team when they journey to Elaaden to help Drack, and she is under constant guard. Vetra is more discrete than Drack or Peebee, but since Alanna spends most of her time at the bar people watching and fending-off unwanted attention, she is largely left alone. Drack tries plying her with drinks to make her talk, and even Liam attempts to carry on a conversation, but she is cautious in her replies. When Liam finally gives up and starts talking about european football, they make better progress. 

His scandalized expression when declares her favorite team is just as hilarious the second time around, and the rest of the day is spent arguing over the last season’s statistics and the mutual wonder of what happened to both their teams in the past three hundred years.

Two and a half weeks into their third visit to Kadara, Alanna gives up on watching drunkards and suspicious meetings, and ventures into the undercity.

It is all too easy to give Peebee the slip, and she hides in the shadows of dirty pre-fabs until Nick leaves with Reyes, Liam and Cora in tow. It takes more effort than she expected to hold back from chasing after them and warning Nick of what was to come. Back home, Reyes was firmly in command of Kadara, the entire struggle still makes her queasy; she and the Collective maintained an uneasy alliance, and the less she has to deal with both factions now, the better. Even if Sloane’s henchmen have been sniffing around the bar more often lately, she determinedly avoided them. 

Vetra finds her after an hour, sitting on a walkway and looking out over the landscape she can see. The Turian is quiet as they sit together, until Alanna finally says, “I thought Peebee was on guard duty right now.”

There isn’t any surprise that Alanna has figured out their rotation. “Nick called her into the field to switch out Liam,” she says. “I volunteered to take over.”

Alanna sighs. “You can ask Drack instead. I know you have important business to take care of, rather than watching me mope. Babysitting me doesn’t keep the Tempest running.”

“I actually found a way to fix that,” Vetra replies. “Come with me.”

The turian leads her to a different part of the port, underneath the prefabs. There, targets were set up, with her guns laid out neatly on a table. They had been locked up in the armory ever since she had been found, and Alanna is more touched than she let on that Vetra had given them back to her. “Target practice,” Vetra explains. “Get your mind of things.”

Normally, Alanna would read one of her favorite novels, find someone new to talk to, or, once she started dating Jaal, help him in the tech lab. Right now, target practice sounds wonderful- each target was the Archon, or a Kett, or a remnant bot. As each target falls to her wrath, the tension drains from her shoulders, and while the helplessness and frustration remained she feels better once she is out of ammo.

“Thanks,” she finally says once she was done.

“No problem.” Vetra examines the targets. “You’re a good shot- you should join us on a mission at some point.”

Alanna snorts and starts cleaning her weapons. “Take it up with Nick. He’s the one whose approval counts.”

“Speaking of,” she gives Alanna a conspiratorial grin. “I don’t know if I buy your whole story, but I’m always looking for info. Do you have any embarrassing stories?”

“Most of them are embarrassing for us both,” Alanna admits with an easy grin. “But, I think I can think of a few.”

“Excellent. Spare no detail.”

She considers, then her grin slowly turns sly. “Well, there was this one time Nick had a crush on an exchange student. Dyed purple hair, pretty brown eyes, didn’t speak a lick of English. Well, he got it in his head that he absolutely had to learn Hindi-”

As Vetra cracks up over the story and Alanna nearly cries in laughter retelling Nick’s horrified expression when his hair definitely didn’t look like the picture on the box of dye, she feels like she’s come home at last.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A month and a half later, Sloane is in charge of Kadara port, the Archon’s ship had been located, and Nick had finally listened to his squadmates and removed Alanna’s unofficial guard duty. When Liam came to her small corner of the docking bay with a smile and a celebratory bottle of beer to inform her of the good news, she almost cried right then and there from the sheer relief.

Nick is still making frequent visits to Elaaden and Kadara, and while Alanna is now able to roam around the port freely, Nick still refuses to bring her with him. She instead spends time with the others; swapping stories from her childhood with Vetra, giving Peebee resources for her as yet unnamed ‘proof of concept’ on the sly (stolen from scavengers, but who has to know?), and gossiping with Kallo. She even talks shop with Suvi—even though she doesn’t really understand what the woman is saying half the time—and loses graciously to Gil at poker. 

Only Jaal is missing: Sweet, confused Jaal, who was trying to get to know her, to make her feel welcomed. And Alanna, coward that she is, made her excuses whenever he attempted to talk. The few conversations she had with him were stilted, with Alanna wanting nothing more than to run to him and tell him everything, and keeping her away is the pain in knowing she can’t. Eventually the Angaran gave up, remaining on the outskirts, eyes watching her with something close to hurt.

It isn’t perfect, and even though there was still an underlying layer of hesitancy in her interactions, it fades with every day, every shared laugh, every smile.

Vetra’s trust has gone a long way, and while she doesn’t exactly believe Alanna’s story, she believes that Alanna isn’t there to hurt them. Nick avoids her whenever possible; in the few glimpses she sees of him, he has a stern expression on his face, born from stress. She wants to talk to him, let him know that she knew what he is going through, that she is there to talk if he needs her. But Cora is his shoulder, and while Alanna has developed a rapport with most of the crew, it is Nick that she misses the most.

She has just gotten him back; it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t keep him.

Whenever she attempts to talk to him, he ignores her completely or responds with a clipped tone. It is painful to see, and even worse when he shuts himself in his room days on end, only emerging for missions. Cora and Lexi are the only ones allowed in, and more than once the Asari can be found muttering about Ryder’s and their stubborn streak. 

The final straw is when she walks in on him discussing strategies with Cora. She has been helping Liam cook and is heading to Vetra’s room to look for spices, but upon climbing up the ladder discovers the door to the bio lab open. “We should scan the ship first,” Cora is saying. “See if we can find any weak points, and locate the engine room.”

“From what Moshae Sjefa has said, the Archon’s room is located centrally and heavily shielded,” Nick adds. His voice is contemplative, and she picture the look of concentration on his face, the absent minded chewing on a hangnail as he thinks things over. “It’s on the other side of a lot of Kett, so going in quietly will be our best option. If we can locate the docking bay-”

Alanna couldn’t help herself. “Not going to work,” she mutters before moving away. She had gone in with the same hopes, but it was very quickly dashed.

The voices quiet, and before she recognizes why Nick appears in the doorway, arms crossed. “Do you have any other suggestions?” he asks, voice steely. Alanna startles; she didn’t realize they could hear her.

She swallows, and tried to play it off. “Your first battle, you’re gonna blow your cover,” she says. “It didn’t work at the Kett facility on Voeld, it’s not going to work here.”

“Then by all means, enlighten us as to your strategy,” he grunts, gesturing to the room. His eyes are tired- they, more than anything, reveal what Nick has been going through.

Alanna still hesitates. Despite Nick’s gradual acceptance of her presence, she isn’t sure what is causing Nick to hold back. Is it her reluctance to speak of what she went through? Guilt at seeing her awake when his own Alanna was still in a coma? Perhaps he somehow resents her for it- that she is here instead of his actual twin. But the idea that she can help, the niggling voice in the back of her mind urging her to do something, that she would regret it if she didn’t. So she steps forward, already trying to think of how she can tell them the truth without destroying everything.

Cora is bent over the desk, the glow from the monitors making the dark circles under her eyes more prominent. She wonders: How long have they been at it? Hours? Days?

“The Archon’s ship is a flying fortress,” Alanna finally says. “It’s got more Kett than the facility, and these aren’t the newly exalted, still in the process of being brainwashed. Everyone there knows how to fight, and they will do so to the death.”

Nick doesn’t look impressed. “This isn’t anything we don’t already know.”

“I… I don’t know what to say,” she admits, wrapping her arms around herself. “I don’t know the consequences-”

“Hang the consequences!” Nick shoots back. “What use is your claimed knowledge if you won’t share it?” 

“How am I supposed to?” she almost shouts- only the fact that others could easily be privy to the argument keeps her voice low. At some point Cora has left and closed the door behind her, but that did little to mask the sound. “I could tell you everything that went wrong for me, the things I discovered, the things I regret. But what then? You trying to prevent them could change everything, and for all I know make things worse!”

Nick looks… he looks angry. The expression is so foreign to on her little brother that it honestly startles her- while he has always been more reserved, there is always a smile at the edges of his mouth, a spark in his eyes that he had gained from her and their mother, one that promises a sharp wit and an easy humor despite the serious face he puts on. The last time she had seen him like this was when SAM had been discovered and his career effectively ended, raging at their father. “So what?” he demands. “You just being here could change things! What you know right now could save lives!”

“And could kill thousands more in the future!” she argues back. 

“So what? That’s a risk I’m willing to take.” He leans heavily into the table, stance aggressive. “What you know now is important. If this were the Alliance you’d be court-martialled.”

She tightens her arms around herself. She’s shaking, holding back the overwhelming guilt and annoyance, the frustration that he isn’t even bothering to listen. “And what help will I be in the future, then?” She retorts. “I tell you everything, and yeah, maybe you prevent some of it- but then something different happens, something we don’t anticipate? It could be so much worse, Nick. What we went through-” she chokes on her words. _I saw you tortured, screaming, and you still wake from nightmares._ Alanna takes a harsh, ragged breath. “I don’t want to see you die.”

His gaze is cold, the light from the various monitors highlighting his features in sharp relief. “I’m not here to deal in what-ifs right now. If you can’t help me, then I’ll need you off this ship.

The words hurt, and her arms drop in shock. “Do you even hear yourself right now?” Alanna demands. “This isn’t the Nick I know.”

“And you aren’t my sister,” he says frostily, and Alanna flinches. “I want you off this ship the next time we board the Nexus.”

She doesn’t think, just reacts. “And what, hide me away like a shameful secret? Dad already did that with mom, and you want to do it with me, too?”

For a horrible moment, she realizes that she just spilled the biggest secret of her family- but he doesn’t flinch. “You already know,” she says, stunned.

“I’ve known for a while,” he replies. “As soon as I found out that dad had locked memories, I started investigating. Turns out Dad didn’t anticipate SAM hacking his console.” A bitter smile breaks out. “Bastard didn’t even have the balls to say mom was still alive.”

“He didn’t want to give us false hope.” Her voice is faint. He knows their mother is alive, but- “This is amazing! You found out way earlier than I did, you can start on a cure so much faster-”

He shakes his head. “I haven’t told anyone about her.”

“What? Why?” she demands. “It’s Mom!”

“And what, bring her back in the middle of a war?” he retorts. “Harry is busy with my sister and everyone coming out of cryo, Lexi is already busy taking care of a crew, Suvi has more data than she knows what to do with. She’s safe where she is.”

Emotions lash through her. How could he have not done anything? “I’ve been looking for a cure for half a year now, and there hasn’t been anything! You’re just wasting time, and for what?” 

“I am protecting-”

She doesn’t listen. “She deserves better than you just… just pushing her aside!”

Nick flinches, but Alanna can’t stop. How could he not _understand_? Alanna had been searching for a cure for months with nothing to show for it, with her mother hidden away with a false name. She still carried the lingering fear that she might accidentally be released, or found, or that she might die anyway- She throws her hands up. “Mom always said you’re just like Dad, looking for the most convenient excuse. How long until Mom becomes your shameful secret too?”

As soon as she says it, she instantly regrets it. Her father has never truly been that selfish- everything he did was for his family, even if he had a strange way of showing it. And Nick definitely doesn’t deserve it- he is stressed, sleep deprived, and carrying the weight of the entire galaxy on his shoulders. But this was Mom- the woman who had raised them almost single handedly even when working full time and advancing her career, who taught Alanna how to braid her hair and throw a punch. Who kept their family together despite being deathly sick. She deserved better than… than this!

“Get out.” Nick’s tone is dangerous and quiet.

And still steaming around the ears even as shame curls in her chest, she storms out of the room.


	4. Chapter 4

Alanna doesn’t know why she even tries to sleep. She knows what is coming—that her brother will die on the Archon’s ship—but she can’t say anything. Especially now that she has almost destroyed everything.

The guilt and anger still twists inside her, mind turning over everything. Nick knew. Nick knew about their mother, and kept it from her, yet demanded she share her secrets. And when she tried to explain, he hadn’t cared, hadn’t…

Alanna curls up tighter. She had ignored him, too.

She hated keeping secrets. They had a nasty habit of becoming exposed, and nothing ever good came of that. 

Finally deciding that sleep was impossible, she rolls off her cot and headed towards the galley, aiming for a glass of water. If she couldn’t sleep, she might as well be productive, and her armor needed some maintenance.

Drack didn’t notice her entry nor exit, and the cargo hold was silent other than the ever-present hum of the drive core. She assembled her gear and laid it out, staring quietly at the pieces before getting to work.

She was in the middle of inspecting a tiny stress fracture on her gauntlets with her omnitool when she heard the doors slide open. It was still early in the morning—0200 to be exact—so it wasn’t Cora, and Vetra would be confined to her room until at least 0600. The steps, however, alerted her to the fact that it was the person she desperately needed but didn’t want to see.

“You are still awake,” Jaal observed, approaching the workbench.

Alanna hunched further over her gauntlet. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Things were silent between them for a while—a minute and a half, to be exact—when Jaal finally spoke again. “You have been avoiding me.”

“It was not my intention,” she says, and her excuse sounds weak even to her. “But…” she trails off. Then sighs. “I cannot lie to you.” Her voice is quiet. 

“That does not explain why. Unless you are lying to them!”

She shakes her head violently. “No! Of course not!” Yet she still doesn’t make eye contact.

Out of fear or safety, she didn’t know.

“I don’t want to be here anymore than anyone really wants me here,” she finally says, clasping her hands together to keep from fidgeting. “I have my own team, my own universe, my own…” 

_Jaal_

“-family to get back to.” 

She misses them. Misses her brother, who is itching to join her team and explore the galaxy. Misses her team, no matter how chaotic they are. Misses SAM, who is always there, knowing when to send her some reassurance, advice, or simply leave her alone.

And she misses Jaal. _Her_ Jaal, who isn’t ashamed to declare his feelings for her. Who always has a hug, a smile always waiting. Her heart aches to be away from him and it hurts worse to know that the Angaran nearby doesn’t know what they have gone through, didn’t know her. He may have Jaal’s face, and voice, and mannerisms, but he isn’t the man she loves. Unconsciously, her hand grips the pendant under her shirt; her only connection to him. 

Alanna forces herself to start moving, packing up the repair kit and neatly putting away her armor in the borrowed footlocker. Jaal watches, silently, the entire time. 

When she is finished, she turns to face him. “Until I find a way home, I am here to help. Even if I have to relive the hell I went through, I will do it. Everyone here is still my family.”

His eyes narrow. “You claim you wish to help, yet you withhold information that will help us win this war.”

“In any other circumstance, would you want to know what is in store for you?” she asks. 

At that, Jaal cracks a small smile. “No, I suppose not. Angara don’t worry about the future.”

“You focus on what’s lacking in the present,” she finishes, quietly. “If I could tell you, I would. But me being here has already changed things. For all I know, it is irrevocably different.”

He nods. “I suppose I… understand. This is new to all of us.”

Intensely relieved that at least some of his suspicion has been reduced, she gives a small smile. “Well, maybe to some of us. You haven’t yet been privy to Drack’s singing.”

Jaal is a mixture of horrified and intrigued. “I didn’t know such a thing was possible.”

“Never, ever let Drack convince you that his liver is immune to alcohol. He does have a limit, and it’s not when the bar gets trashed.”

He laughs, and the sound echoes—they both realize how late it is, and he stops, but the humor is still in his eyes. “I will keep that in mind.”

Alanna curses her heart for skipping a beat—he might not be hers, but it is still Jaal. “I should probably try to sleep again. Things will get exciting tomorrow.”

She can see the confusion of her sudden retreat in his eyes, but he doesn’t protest. “Indeed. We will all need to be up our toes yesterday.”

“On our toes,” she corrects, and fights back yet another smile. Even now, it is still so easy to fall into his orbit. “Goodnight, Jaal.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but then in an instant his gaze sharpens and he stiffens. “Your necklace,” he accuses, and Alanna’s hand flies up to cover the pendant that has, at some point, come out from under her shirt.

Alanna knows that any sort of trust she has gained has been lost.

She swallows, and shakily, drops her hand. Jaal crowds her, reaching out to grab it, then lets go as if it burned him. “That is my family’s honorific,” he hisses. “Only members of the family are allowed to wear this.”

“Yes,” she replied, voice barely above a whisper.

The implication hits him, and he takes a step back. “You and I are… were…”

Alanna fiddles with the edge of her shirt. “We were.”

“ _How_?”

His voice is ragged, raw with disbelief, and the air is charged with his bioelectricity. He seems to realize this, and reigns it in with difficulty, but it still sputters and sparks over his skin. 

“In the Tempest tech lab, you said it would be an honor to get to know me,” she states, doing her best to look into his eyes. He needs honesty right now, no matter how much it will hurt. “In your bedroom on Havarl, you asked if we could be together. Under a waterfall on Aya, you told me to take you with me wherever I went. And on a hill on Meridian, you asked if you could be mine until the stars go out.”

Jaal is still, eyes wide and pupils dilated, his frame tense. Still, he doesn’t protest, so she continues. “I know that you’re ticklish along your ribcage, and that Allia broke your heart when you were sixteen. You joined the resistance when you were eighteen and when you killed your first Kett you threw up. I also know that right now, you are scared of how much you enjoy being on the Tempest because you feel as if you are abandoning the Resistance even though you know this is where you are meant to be. And, even though you have told no one else, you are secretly happy that you have escaped the expectations of your family.”

He flinches, violently, and takes a pained breath. “I… see.”

Alanna hesitantly steps toward him, resting a hand on his arm. It tingles where it lies, but she ignores it. “I am not wanting to replace him with you,” she says firmly. “But you are all still my family, my crew, and that will never change.”

For a moment she thinks that he will protest, but slowly, he relaxes under her hand and sighs, long and hard. After muttering something in Shelesh her translator doesn’t catch, he finally offers his arm in the traditional Angaran greeting, and with something like hope in her chest, she matches it.

“I don’t know if I will ever fully believe your story,” he states. “But I understand that you are in an infinitely more challenging and complicated situation than we are. So, for what little it is worth… I will try to not be so suspicious from here on out.”

She blinks back the sudden tears in her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers. “That means a lot.”

Jaal merely nods solemnly before stepping back. “For now, we both must rest. Tomorrow will be hard enough without the added strain of exhaustion.”

Alanna makes a noise of confirmation, tucking the pendant back into her shirt and wiping her eyes. Jaal notices, but doesn’t comment, instead wishing her goodnight before exiting the bay.

Emotionally drained but at more peace than when she started, Alanna heads to bed. Exhaustion hits her like a truck, but before she passes out, she whispers, “SAM?”

“Yes, Alanna?” the AI responds, not in public, but in the private channel in her implant. The motion further eases her heart.

“Please don’t tell Scott about what happened unless Jaal speaks about it first,” she requests. “Some of those things I said…”

“Jaal confided to you in confidence,” SAM finishes. “I understand.”

She is fighting to stay awake at this point, so merely mumbles her gratitude before slipping into dreams. Tomorrow will bring hardships for everyone,but Alanna knows that progress has been made. And even if it is only with one person, who that person is makes all the difference in the universe.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day is tense as everyone prepared for the final approach to the Archon’s ship. Gil rechecks everyone’s armor several times, hesitating only once before returning to Alanna to ensure that her in-suit systems are working as they should. She appreciates it and doesn’t fuss as he does so—even patiently relays her HUD statistics when he asks about them. She hadn’t known that she had missed Gil’s fussing until faced with the possibility of never seeing it again.

At first, she isn’t even sure she should join the others. But Nick had simply given her an unreadable look and then told her to suit up. She wasn’t sure if he was still angry, but before she could apologize for her harsh words he moved away.

“Alright, here’s the plan,” Nick calls out, and immediately everyone stops fidgeting to focus on their Pathfinder. “Drack, Vetra, and I will infiltrate the flagship from the closest available docking bay. I will lead the initial charge, and once the attention is on us Cora will lead a secondary team consisting of PeeBee and Liam to flank and secure the docking bay for extraction with us. We will then split again, with Vetra, Liam, and PeeBee moving to find and secure engineering so that the Kett don’t get any ideas about venting us out an airlock. Cora, Drack and I will then push further into the Kett ship to find the relic. Once at engineering, if you can hack any sort of systems to distract the Kett, do so, but do not put yourself or the team at risk. Jaal, you will be in charge of monitoring comms and coordinating the strike teams. Understood?”

To everyone’s surprise, Jaal asks, “What about Alanna?”

All eyes turn to her, and she meets them without shame.

“If she knows what is to happen, then perhaps having her on the team will be invaluable,” he continues.

Emotions wars over Nick’s face, but he sighs. It’s a defeated sigh- one of surrendering to the inevitable. Surrounded as he is by people who support her, there was little he could do dissuade them. “I don’t suppose you have any advice?” he asks, only the slightest bit of challenge in his tone.

So that’s how it’s going to be, she thinks. Not water under the bridge, but simply… put aside for now. The mission comes first.

In one stunning, clarifying moment, she realizes that one of them has to give first. She and her twin both are both incredibly stubborn, but what makes them such a good team, what will always make them a good team, is that they know what the other’s limits are. And despite his reluctance to see her as Alanna, he is still willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Now… now she has to trust him, too.

“The Archon has captured the Salarian ark,” she says without hesitation, and surprise rocks the group. “Before you ask, no, I couldn’t tell you, but you would have found out in-” she checks her omni-tool- “five minutes anyway. Their Pathfinder is alive, but you will need to find her, and Drack, your scouts are onboard as well.”

There is an uproar immediately following her announcement. “That is something you should have said immediately,” Drack growls, followed by Cora’s “The Archon having the ark complicates matters”, and Vetra’s “Well, shit.” Even PeeBee joins in the fracas, saying that she should have known the Archon would use innocents as a body shield.

Nick, however, is simply staring at her intently, face unreadable. In that moment, he looks so much like their father that her heart nearly breaks- but he took a deep breath and the moment ends. “Okay. So. Change of plan.”

“You think?” Vetra mutters.

“Really big change of plan,” he amends. “Oh, what the hell. Looks like we’re going to be winging it, as usual.”

Cora sighs, but doesn’t look surprised. “Who’s going to be on your team, Sir?”

“You, Drack, and PeeBee,” he replies. “We don’t want to risk the Salarian Ark, so we’re going to have to be small and fast. We need to make the Salarian Pathfinder our first priority, and then see if we can find any information about the missing scouts on our way to the relic.”

Drack grunts. “If that quadless bastard has hurt them in any way he’s going to wish he’d never been born.”

“Everyone else, secure the docking area and be prepared in case I need backup. Dismissed.”

As they leave, Alanna catches Jaal’s attention. “Thank you,” she says. “I… wasn’t expecting that.”

He gives a small smile. “Trust is something that needs to be earned, but it also needs to be returned. I will endeavor to do so.” 

Glad that he doesn’t have any hard feelings from the previous night’s discussion, she lets him go with a tiny smile of her own and turns to face the last person remaining- her brother. He has a deeply concerned look on his face as he stares after Jaal.

“Nick?” she asks.

Her brother-but-not sighs and runs his hands through his hair before scratching the base of his neck. “I want to apologize for what I said last night,” he says. “Things have been… tense, lately.”

“I know,” she says, simply. SAM had often warned her how high her stress levels were- with Nick, who took things so seriously and piled everything onto his shoulders, they must be so much worse. “It’s okay, and… I apologize too. There are times where I don’t believe myself, either, and what I said was out of line.”

“Then let’s hope that the Moshae upholds her end of the bargain and we can get you back home,” he replies. “Until then, we have Meridian to find.”

Alanna gives a grim smile. “Win this battle, we’re one step closer to the end of the war.”

“Wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone,” Nick said. “Let’s go.”

Their gazes hold for a moment longer, and thoughts they don’t voice aloud hang suspended in the air between them. For their mother, safe in cryo. For their father, who died before his time among the stars he had wanted to see. For each other and yet not, who are counting on the other to make it out of everything alive so they can share in the adventure together.

They assemble in the airlock, doing one more check of their weapons and armor systems before Kallo gives the go-ahead. Nick leaves first, Cora and Drack going with him, leaving the rest to wait anxiously for Nick’s orders.

“Second team, status report?” Nick asks ten minutes later.

“Ready to advance on your word,” Liam responds. 

“We’re about to engage. Follow and await my signal to enter.”

Alanna keeps her weapons holstered, and when they enter the tethers she is once again struck by the stillness and quiet. It was easy to forget, sometimes, with artificial gravity and mass effect cores and artificial lighting, how quiet space really was. Without any sort of ambient noise, even her steps don’t echo, swallowed by the void around them. Gravity leaves as soon as the airlock closes behind them, but there are handles along the walls of the tethers that let them pull themselves along. Peebee issues a challenge—”The last one there’s a rotten egg!”—which is answered by Liam and Vetra. Jaal follows along more cautiously, although behind Alanna. Before she knows it she is carefully surrounded by the team, and the unconscious way they worked together makes her heart swell in pride even as she fights back tears. 

“Room clear.” Nick’s voice startles them. “How far out are you?”

“Three quarters, about,” Liam reports. “About fifteen minutes away.”

“Roger that. Pathfinder Raeka and her team have headed out; we’re about to follow. This sector should be quiet. We would stay, but we can’t waste anymore time.”

Everyone murmurs words of understanding, then doubles their speed.

Five minutes later they enter the docking bay, greeted by silence and a lot of dead kett. “Alright folks, settle in,” Liam announces. “Peebee, bring any cards?”

“You know it! We stripping this time?”

“On the middle of a Kett ship?” Jaal asks, clearly disturbed. From where he’s leaning against the railing he has a good eye on the layout of the docking bay, but Peebee’s argument draws him in. 

“Well, maybe it’ll shock them enough so that we can have the element of surprise!”

Vetra scowls. “You already aren’t wearing armor Peebee, you want to make it worse?”

“You got any better ideas?” Peebee defends. 

As they bicker Alanna paces, moving carefully away from the group on each pass. With Jaal too busy arguing with Peebee and Vetra fussing at them both for being too loud, It is far too easy to slip out the door, and retrace Nick’s steps. 

Dead kett is her trail, although every so often she comes across a stray patrol looking to either cut Nick’s team off from behind or find survivors. Alanna dispatches them quickly, moving on as soon as she can.

It is as she is waiting around a corner for another patrol to pass so she can ambush them from behind when one splits from the group to round the corner. Its eyes widen, but before it can sound the alarm it jerks and slides to the ground, lifeless.

A second later Jaal shimmers into existence, his tactical cloak slipping off. Alanna grips her rifle and prepares to explain, but the Angara speaks first in a harsh whisper. “They will notice their missing colleague shortly. I suggest we act now.”

“Right.” She peeks around the corner to assess, then turns back to him. “Strike quickly and quietly. I’ll use my biotics to neutralize those that remain.” Before he can protest she activates her tactical cloak and rounds the corner.

Half the patrol is gone before their cloaks vanish and the Kett realize that they are being taken out. Alanna releases a singularity that catches two of the remaining five, but their leader, a Destined with a nasty scar across their crown, snarls and charges Alanna. She twists out of the way, and a sharp jerk of her head towards Jaal has him engaging the others as she and the leader engage in a vicious firefight. Without the support of his underlings the Destined is quickly killed, and Alanna grins at Jaal from the battle adrenaline and the seamless way they worked together. His serious expression, however, causes it to falter. She knows that look, and the swell of sorrow that rises within her when she remembers that this isn’t her Angaran almost causes her to miss his words.

“You are lucky that I was the one who noticed your disappearance,” he rumbles. “What are you trying to accomplish?” A Kett twitches, and he shoots it without looking. It gives a gargled cry then stills.

Alanna squares her shoulders and fights back her feelings. “I am saving my brother’s life,” she retorts. “He doesn’t know what’s coming. I do. And if making everyone angry is the price I gotta pay, then fine. But my little brother is not committing suicide on my watch.”

Jaal recoiles. “Suicide?”

“Desperate times that leads to a long story. Do you fault me for not wanting him to go through that?”

He shakes his head. “No. Lead the way.”

They encounter no more resistance on the way, and Alanna motions for Jaal to stop before cautiously peeking her head around the corner. She is too late- Nick has already been caught by the field, but the Archon is still there. His hand moves, and she sees the transmitter- before he can inject it, she raises the pistol and shoots it out of his hand. Another shot grazes his arm and hits the Primus square in the chest, but only serves to stagger them. Alanna curses her pistol’s low accuracy at long distance, wishing she had switched to her scout rifle.

The Archon and his second and command fall back as Alanna barrels into the room, avoiding the stasis field. Her biotic shield absorbs the few shots from the Primus as they cover their escape, and Alanna manages to land a few more shots into the Archon’s own shield before they escape. All she can see is the Archon’s murderous glare and green blood oozing between his fingers before the door slams shut between them.

“Bastard,” Alanna mutters. She turns to her brother and eyes him, trying in vain to ignore the fear of almost being too late still swimming in her gut. “Nicky, you sure know how to pick ‘em. Didn’t know you were into bondage, though.”

His voice is strained when he replies, but there is a grudging smile on his face. “Decided to try something new. Think I’ll stick to the classics from here on out though.”

“Probably a safe bet,” she agrees, then lets them down. Drack lands with a floor-jarring thud that causes Cora to stumble into Nick, who takes a moment to steady her before turning back to Alanna. 

“I thought I told you to stay behind,” he says, suspicion and gratitude warring in his gaze.

Alanna is too relieved to be offended. “You couldn’t have gotten out of there without dying, Nick. And I can’t- what to happened to me, to you back in-” she pauses, and takes a breath, well aware of the Archon still watching them from whatever hole he is in- “I can’t let you go through that.”

“She is telling the truth,” SAM replies. “The stasis field was activated for living organic organisms. The only way out was death.”

Nick’s face wavers for a moment- then he steps forward to hug Alanna tightly. She returns the gesture, a hope that perhaps everything would end up okay surging through her. “You disregarded orders and probably endangered your life by pissing off the Archon, but.. Thank you.”

“Told you I’d always look after you, little bro,” she whispers, fighting back tears.

His arms tighten slightly before he steps back, a smile on his face. “You always were the first to jump in to fight my bullies.” After rolling his shoulders and checking his ammo clip, he asks, “Know how to get out of here?”

“Through there.” She points to the doorway. “It’ll open a way into the vents.”

He nods and turned to Jaal. “Make sure she gets back safe?”

“I don’t think I could make your sister do anything,” Jaal replies, and Alanna smirks as she pats her pistol lovingly.

“Don’t forget it,” she says. “Good luck, Nicky.”

“See you on the other side, Alanny.”

With a hand signal that would have made any Alliance marine proud and earns only an unimpressed grunt from Drack, the trio quickly leaves.

“You have no intention of heading back to the others, do you?” Jaal asks, quietly.

“No.” Her tone is equally as subdued. “My work isn’t done yet.” 

The choice ahead of Nick isn’t one she looks back on with fondness- even now she still mourned Raeka’s passing, what she could have learned from a trained Pathfinder. But the idea of exaltation- the knowledge that Drack’s scouts would lose who they were, what they were- was abhorrent. Alanna owes the Salarian Pathfinder two debts, and if this is how she is destined to repay her, then she won’t let her down again.

“Come on Jaal,” she says. “We have a Salarian to find.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As it turns out, finding Raeka is harder than she thought.

“We’re lost,” Jaal says, flatly.

“We’re not lost,” Alanna replies primly. “Just not where we are supposed to be.”

“Which means we’re lost.”

“We’re misplaced.”

Jaal’s silence is answer enough.

“Okay, fine, we’re lost,” she grumbles. “SAM, do you have any idea where we are?”

There is a tense delay, at which point Alanna starts to worry, but the AI finally replies over the comm. “Unknown. There appears to be holding cells nearby, but I am unable to access security feeds.”

“Well that’s still a good sign,” she says optimistically. “The Salarians who are still alive would be kept somewhere.”

Even though he is doubtless preoccupied with keeping Nick alive, SAM gives them a waypoint to their destination. “SAM, I think there’s a problem,” she frowns. “This leads through the barracks.”

“Correct.”

“The barracks where most of the Kett are.”

“It is the only route, Alanna.”

“Right.” She glances at Jaal. “Last chance to back out.”

Jaal reloads his gun and gives a, quite frankly, terrifying smile. “Almost suicide mission against overwhelming numbers of Kett on an enemy ship with no back up? This is when I fight best.”

Alanna grins and hefted her rifle. “You know what, Jaal? This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“So long as we stay friends.”

“Okay, way to make it awkward.” She gestures with her free hand. “After you.”

On the count of three, they barge into the room. She uses her biotics to flip a table for cover, and they have just slid into position when the first hail of bullets greets them.

They wait for the inevitable reload to burst from cover, Alanna biotically throwing the table forward to crash into a group of Kett and send them crashing into others like bowling pins. Jaal vanishes just as a group aims towards him, and Alanna lets loose a singularity that sends another group into the air and causes the rest to funnel to the other side of the room or risk getting caught in the field. The ones who aren’t flailing in distress or trying to get a hold on their guns again focus fire on her, at which point she uses her jump jets to dodge, taking refuge behind a column. Thank goodness for strange Kett architecture.

“Jaal!” she shouts, and he reappears next to her, holding several pins in his hands.

The Kett star in confusion. Then dawning recognition, a split second before the grenades go off. 

Amid the chaos, Alanna detonates the singularity, and she and Jaal charge into the ranks. Her shields shatter, and she runs out of ammo in her rifle, but without a pause she switches to her pistol and continues making her way forward.

“Alanna! Anointed!” Jaal shouts, and she turns to find herself face to face with a Kett mini gun.

She hears the whine as the gun starts up; just as it is about to fire, the lights cut out and gravity is lost.

Alanna could have cried from relief. Nick had fired the EMP device. Instead she grins, gives the Anointed a wave, and activates her jump jets to fly across the room. 

Jaal grabs her hand and swings her into the adjacent room, and they slam the door shut just as the gravity comes back.

“How long?” she gasps. 

“About two minutes. We had better run.” Jaal replies, and they take off down the hallway.

They pass several rooms and run into three of the Kett’s war dogs, but eventually they round the corner and see a Krogan fighting off a Destined. “Incoming!” Alanna shouts, and the grenade sails perfectly through the air and lands directly on the Destined’s face.

The Kett reaches up to grab it, but while it is distracted the Krogan is able to shove its shotgun directly onto the Kett’s chest and pull the trigger. It dies in a shower of green blood. 

“Who’re you?” the Krogan demands, shoving the dead Kett off of him. He doesn’t even flinch as the grenade goes off, showering him in more kett blood and innards.

“Birtak!” Alanna says cheerfully when she recognizes him. “Need a hand?”

The Krogan shoves the shotgun in her face as a reply. To her credit, she doesn’t flinch when it gets Kett brains on her helmet. “Who’re you?” he repeats, voice a dangerous growl.

“Nakmor Drack sent us,” Alanna replies. “Well, more like we found you by accident instead of the Salarians, but this is definitely better.”

Jaal opens his mouth to protest, but at Alanna’s pointed glare he swallows and nods. “The Salarians are more squishy.” His tone is reluctant.

Birtak still looks suspicious, but lowers the shotgun. “Damn right they are. So where’s Drack then?”

“With the Pathfinder.” Alanna takes the opportunity to wipe the Kett innards off, but only succeeds in smearing the mess more. She gives it up as a lost cause; she will be stuck cleaning her gear for hours regardless. “The power loss that got you out of that cage was from the EMP they set. We made our way here to cause even more chaos and mayhem Krogan style on the Pathfinder’s orders.”

Birtak grins. “Now you’re talkin my language. Except the rest of the squad is on the other side of a lot of Kett.”

Jaal shrugs. “We have been killing a lot of Kett today. What’s a few more?”

Alanna snorts. “You’ll be singing a different tune soon,” she says, taking position beside the door. This was not a fight she relished. “Birtak, take point, Jaal-”

 

“Too much talking,” Birtak scoffs, then slams his fist into the panel to open the door and charges in, roaring.

She and Jaal exchange an exasperated look. “Clearly, all Krogans have a death wish,” he muses. 

“They do come from Space Australia,” she shouts back, spinning into the room to engage with a group of Chosen.

“Space… Aus-trai-lee-uh?” Jaal asks, confused.

“Explain later, fight now!”

The fight is more harrowing and dangerous than she remembered. Last time she was torn with guilt and grief with letting Raeka die after the Salarian saved them. That fight was nothing more than a haze of gunfire and biotics. This time, she is focused, and the sheer numbers of Kett between them and the other Krogan were intimidating.

“SAM! Status of Nick and the others?” she shouts as a Wraith charges her. She reels her arm back then punches it in the mouth just as it pounces for her, stunning it long enough for her to shoot it three times rapidly in the skull. It gives a high pitched bark and dies. 

“They are on their way to Pathfinder Raeka’s location now.”

She lets out a sigh of relief and covers Jaal’s dash for cover. “Mission accomplished. Now let’s get these Krogan home.”

Birtak is a one-Krogan wrecking team, but Alanna has to pull him out of the fire more than once. “This isn’t the time to play hero!” she growls as she forcibly shoves between him and a Chosen that was poised to deal a fatal strike to the life support system of his armor. 

She should have known better, since Birtak simply roared and runs off again. Too late, she sees the encroaching blue mist, and before long she is blind to her surroundings. 

“SAM?” she whispers. The AI doesn’t reply- Nick is in combat, then. She is on her own.

There has only been one situation when she has been caught in a Destined’s trap. She, Vetra, and Peebee were on Voeld, investigating a distress call from the Resistance. As Peebee attempted to regain the information from the downed shuttle’s black box, Alanna and Vetra had started sweeping the perimeter for clues. Vetra’s shout had been the only warning before the mist had surrounded her, and the only thing that had saved her then was a near suicide attempt where she bodily flung herself at her invisible assailant to attach a sticky grenade to them. 

This time, she is low on ammo and out of grenades, with an overheating biotic amp that is already close to the emergency shutdown limit. Her best plan is simply to run for it, but she will be defenseless to the Destined’s attacks. 

So she does the opposite.

“Coward!” she screams, keeping a sharp eye on the mist. “You call yourself superior and yet you hide like a weakling! If you are so much better than I am, come prove it!”

The mist eddies, and Alanna watches it sharply as she continues to shout challenges. There- a vague outline. Her pistol is up in less than a second and she fires three rapid shots, grinning victoriously when blood splatters to the floor. “Not so superior now are you,” she growls.

The Destined charges, and Alanna creates a singularity to even the battleground despite the headache that lances through her. One Chosen that had been hiding in the mist is caught in it, but the Destined simply barrels through the biotic field, uncaring at the strain it puts on their shields. Alanna takes advantage, her pistol picking out the weak points in the armor- head, joint of shoulders, legs to slow them. She rolls out of the way to avoid the gunfire in response, but loses her footing on a puddle of blood on the ground and falls, landing painfully on her right shoulder. With a sinister grin, the Destined looms over her, gun inches from her face.

“Too slow,” she gasps, then uses her legs to kick the Destined’s out from under them.

They grapple, and while the Kett has the height and strength advantage Alanna has wrestled with her brother her entire life under the strict eye of their father. She knows how to use her stature to her advantage, and soon the Kett is underneath her, arms uselessly behind their back. 

“I really wish someone was here to see that,” she mutters before killing it.

The smoke begins to dissipate, and Alanna puts the Chosen still caught in the Singularity field out of its misery before detonating it. A hail of bullets in her direction alerts her to the Kett still advancing on her position, so she awkwardly crab walks out of the way, groping for a surface she can hide behind.

Jaal emerges from the smoke like an action hero, not even breaking his run as he bends down to scoop her up and carry her into the previous room. Though she is slung over his shoulder, she still shoots at their pursuers, more than one shot flying wide but still causing them to hesitate long enough for them to get into cover. She laughs in disbelief and exhilaration, wondering if her Jaal would be amenable to incorporating this move into their battle repertoire.

“Thanks,” she gasps when he puts her down, rubbing her shoulder as she fights to hold back the giggles. It is sore but didn’t seem to be hurt too badly. “How’d you know?”

“I might not have been able to see you but I could still hear,” he replies. “There’s only a few more.” 

The Ascendant’s roar of challenge echoes through the hallway.

“Aaaaand there it is,” she mutters. She checks her spare ammo; there’s not enough. “Well, Jaal. Ready for the grand finale?”

His determined gaze meets hers. “Let’s finish this.”


	6. Chapter 6

Nick rubs at his temples as Tann ends the call and his holo vanishes, torn between groaning in frustration and sighing in relief that the Salarian took his condescending attitude with him. ‘Wasted resources to save the Krogan’, indeed. Stars, he hates politics.

Raeka gives him a sympathetic look. “Can’t say I’m jealous; I haven’t been taking the brunt of his scrutiny.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he replies, ruefully. “Even with my years of service I still haven’t gotten used to internal politics.”

The Salarian chuckles, but her smile grows sad. “I still can’t believe that Jien Garson and Alec are dead.” Her expression is wistful. “They were… the life and soul of this endeavor.”

He snorts. “I can’t imagine my dad being the life or soul of anything.”

“He was… intense,” Raeka acknowledges. “But his dedication and passion were things that I admired. He made you believe in the impossible.”

Nick remembers Cora’s wistful expression, the fond tone in her voice whenever she spoke of his dad, and the way he has been striving his entire life for his father’s approval. “I’ve been getting that a lot lately,” he mutters. “But he’s gone, so we have to do whatever we can to make this place our home.”

Raeka gestures, and he follows her to look over the railing. Below them, his crew is celebrating- Peebee is trying to shove alcohol at Cora, Jaal and Liam were trading jokes and insults alike, Lexi is refraining from reminding everyone about their post-mission check up but still hovering like a worried mother hen, Vetra is on her omnitool against the wall watching and calling out comments on the various conversations, and Drack hasn’t left Alanna’s side, declaring her the hero of the hour and an honorary Krogan. Gill and Suvi join him in his cheers, and while Kallo is piloting through the Scourge, the doors to the cockpit are open so that he still can be somewhat involved in the celebrations.

“You make a good team,” she says. “All of you. If anyone can find a place for us to belong, it’s the crew of the Tempest.” Below them, Alanna has somehow managed to convince Drack to carry her on his shoulder, and she gives another toast to the Krogan scouts for the spectacular explosion they had triggered during the escape. Lexi is begging Drack to let her down—he is carrying her with his prosthetic arm after all. Alanna merely chucks a peanut to Peebee, who catches it in her mouth without even pausing in her conversation with Vetra. “Pathfinder isn’t just a title with you and your team. It’s the first sign of hope we’ve had.”

He makes eye contact with Alanna, who grins at him. He hasn’t even realized how tense she has been until this point—she looks like his older twin sister, the mischievous smile back on her face, all eyes gravitating naturally towards her. She has a presence to her that electrifies the room, something that he hadn’t realized was gone until it was back.

Nick’s smile is the first genuine one he’s had in weeks. “You know, maybe that’s all we need.” 

Later, once they have reached the Nexus, Nick finds Alanna in the docking bay, using her omni tool to run diagnostics on her armor. He approaches her slowly, unsure if he will be welcome. With the way he has been treating her, he doesn’t blame her. “Hey, everyone is on shore leave. I think there’s a party at the Vortex. Want to join us?”

The invitation is an olive branch, another apology. He wishes he had extended it before now, before everything got so twisted up between them. 

But the memory of her bursting into the stasis chamber, putting herself in the line of fire to protect him, keeps rolling around in his mind. She didn’t hold his actions against him, and she was just as sorry about what had transpired in the bio lab as he was. Briefly, it was like they didn’t have the expanse of an entire universe between them, and he wants that feeling back.

She gives a tiny smile, oblivious or ignoring his turmoil, before focusing once more on her ‘tool. “Yeah, I’m about to head out, actually. Just waiting for a reply from the Moshae.”

Nick pauses in surprise. “You’re in correspondence with the Moshae?”

“Ever since you rescued her,” Alanna replies. Nick wonders why the Angara never told him; during the occasional visits to Aya, she hadn’t mentioned Alanna once. “I’ve been keeping her updated on our adventures and all of Peebee’s research. She even said she would have taken her on as an apprentice fifty years ago.”

“That’s… actually quite a compliment,” Nick admits as he strolls closer, obligingly removing a small panel so she can get to the circuits within it . “But what are you waiting for a reply on?”

“The vault that sent me here,” Alanna replies, perking up as she carefully removes the busted circuitry and replaces it with a fabricated replacement. “The Angara are trying to reestablish contact with their old colonies, and I sent them several that I know about in exchange. She said she’d get me access to the site so that I could go home.”

The dread that accompanies her statement surprises him. It is true that his sister is still in a coma in the medical bay- but she is also standing right in front of him, dressed in a blue and white Andromeda hoodie and sweats. Her hair is down for once, styled in the way she has worn it since she was sixteen, before their mother got sick. And it had been good to know that she had been there on the ship to watch his back- they have always been there to count on one another, and now the prospect of losing her when he has just gotten her back is harder to consider than he thought.

Her omnitool pings, sparing him a reply. She puts down her tools and checks it immediately, her expression lighting up. “The Moshae’s made contact,” she breathes. “She said that they agreed to meet with us. I can… I can leave immediately.”

Nick’s mouth goes dry. The scientists are still pouring over the data from Meridian and developing the Ghost Storm technology. They were nearing the end of all of it—and she wouldn’t be there.

For as long as he had spent pushing her away, the idea of doing this without her had never crossed his mind. 

“How long will it take to get there?” he asks instead.

“Three days, at the most.” Her hands quickly finish her work on her armor. “It won’t take long to activate the Vault after that, although the fewer people that go the better—I was caught up by accident, and I don’t want to drag you over with me with your timeline in such a crucial place.” She is almost bouncing as she cleans up. “Then I can get out of your hair and everything can go back to normal.”

The guilt runs deep. Of course she wanted to get back. They hadn’t trusted her and made her feel like an enemy at first, and he had been the most deliberately vicious. Who was Nick to ask her to stay for his sake?

“Give Kallo the coordinates,” he says. “We can leave now.”

“What about the others?” There’s a spark of worry in her voice. He doesn’t know if it’s for him or the others.

“I’ll let them know if they want to come, but shore leave is a week as mandated by Lexi. We’ll be there and back before they need to report back to the Tempest.” The words are forced, but she doesn’t seem to notice, a bright smile breaking across her features.

Alanna hugs him. “Thank you, Nick. I’ll let Kallo know immediately.”

She races off, and he watches her go with a sinking heart. Maybe he has become too much like his father after all. He didn’t know what he had until it was gone.

When he alerts the squad, only Cora agrees to come. Jaal is with the Angaran ambassador for the next few days, Drack and Kesh are inseparable, and while Peebee is interested in the remnant technology, she is more interested in the bar. Vetra is catching up with her contacts and introducing her sister to her more reliable contacts, easing Sid into her life. She may be reluctant to acknowledge her sister’s growing up but she is even more abhorred to the idea of sacrificing an entire week with her sister.

“The colony is extremely suspicious of outsiders, so don’t just follow the Moshae’s lead,” Alanna says as they prepare to land. The previous three days have been strange. Alanna has been bouncing all through the ship, ensuring that she has all her gear and the miscellaneous things she has acquired during her stay. He has been spending most of it with Cora under the guise of pouring over data extracted from the Archon’s ship. While Alanna’s joy is infectious, the guilt has grown stronger. While Cora didn’t exactly know what he is feeling, she at least knew that he needed a shoulder and a distraction. 

It is eerily similar to the first experience on Aya. Armed guards surround them as soon as they disembark, leading them to an Angaran in green robes who looks at them with barely concealed suspicion. “How do you know of this place?” he demands.

Alanna steps forward. “I told them,” she says, and pulls out a necklace that she proceeds to hand him. Nick wonders briefly what the importance of it is. Perhaps some strange sort of passport? The elder’s frown visibly deepens when he sees it. “The Shrine sent me here,” Alanna explains as the Angaran turns the small blue pendant over in his hands. “In a parallel world, you asked me to heal it, and when it began working properly it sent me here. I only ask that I can heal yours so that I can go home.”

“The Shrine has been asleep for centuries.” His reply is short and the pendant hangs between them, spinning delicately on its chain. “Why should we believe you?”

Nick sees Alanna’s confidence falter. “Asleep? You mean—”

“It has not spoken to us since the Creators left,” he says. “It cannot send you home.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nick knocks on the wall next to the door. “Alanna? You alright?”

She looks up from where she has been staring at her omnitool. The same email that she had opened an hour ago was still displayed- the Moshae apologizing for being unable to help. “I’m fine,” she says, her voice only a little hoarse. “It was too good to be true, anyway. Meridian is the center of the Vault network, but it’s also way more than that. Figures that it would also power weird science experiments.”

He pauses. “Should I know about this?”

Alanna shrugs, turning to stare blankly at the email once more. “At this point, I don’t think it matters. You already know about Meridian.”

“I think there’s more to it than that,” he replies cautiously.

His twin gets to her feet in an explosion of movement. “Of course there is! But there’s nothing I can do about it right now. If restoring Meridian is the key to get home, then I will do it.” She starts running her hands through her hair aggressively. “I’ve done it once, I can do it again, right?”

And suddenly, Nick hates himself.

When Alanna had returned to the Tempest after the disastrous meeting with the colony, he had been secretly relieved. His sister was staying with him- he didn’t have to face this alone. But in his selfish joy he had missed her silence, the way she retreated to her corner in the docking bay almost immediately. Whatever had went down between her and the Archon had been traumatizing—and she had to relive it.

“Alanny, you don’t have to do anything,” he says fiercely, surprising them both. “This isn’t your fight. You’ve done your time, you’ve sacrificed everything. And I’m sorry I didn’t trust you at first, and I’m sorry that you’re having to relive this. But this isn’t your fight this time. If you wanted to sit back on the Nexus and spend your time talking shop with the scientists, that’s fine. I’ll support you no matter what.”

Alanna’s eyes are wide, and her hands are frozen, tangled in her hair. Slowly they fall down, and she swallows. “I… But Nick, I can’t just…”

“You can and you will.” His tone brooks no argument. “Listen, my sister is still in a coma, but she’s also standing in front of me right now. And it’s time I started taking care of her.”

She places her hands on his shoulders. “Your sister is going to wake up any day now,” Alanna replies gently. “You are going to walk into the med bay, you are going to get your sister back, and I am going to be the imposter again.” She interrupts before he can speak again. “It’s okay. I’m out of place here. But who would I be if I just stood by when I could have helped?”

Nick gives a small smile as he reciprocates her gesture. “You don’t always have to be the hero, Alanna.”

“But I’m still your big sister. You get two for the price of one.” She beams. “Now, let’s head back to the Nexus. It’s time we started fighting back.”

Relieved that she seems to be doing okay again, he leaves. If he had turned around, he would have seen the smile falter, and sadness creep back into her expression.


	7. Chapter 7

True to Alanna’s word, his sister wakes up the next day. They are leaving in five hours to attack Khi Tasira, and while he knows the other Pathfinders would have willingly waited another day for him to make sure his sister is okay, he doesn’t want to invite the awkward explanations. Besides, Harry has made it clear she is going to be confined to her bed for the foreseeable future. There isn’t any way he is going to be able to sneak her out onto the Nexus anyway.

It is strange, staring at his actual twin in the medbay while another version of her had been arguing with Vetra over scopes when he left them. But at the same time, this is where he belongs; teasing that he is now technically older than her since she had spent an extra few hours in cryo, and her ribbing him for diving head first into the the biggest mess he could find, and sitting in silence just holding each other in relief. 

“I want to hear everything,” she says, her bed in recline so that she can sit up comfortably. “What does Eos look like? Is Voeld as cold as it looks? Tell me about the waterfalls on Aya.”

He holds up his hands. “Whoa, whoa, one at a time!” he laughs. “Eos is beautiful, Voeld is colder than it looks, and I haven’t visited the waterfalls yet but they look amazing.” 

Alanna gives a mournful sigh. “SAM sent me some photos but it’s not enough, you know? They’re all so beautiful.”

“Not quite what we expected, though,” he reminds her.

She shrugs. “So what? We expected things to change during the six hundred years we were asleep. Sure, this is a bit more extreme than we expected, but this is home now. We just have a larger skating rink than we anticipated.”

“You haven’t been ice skating once your entire life.”

“Never too late to start!”

Nick shakes his head but lets her win the argument. “How are you holding up, Alanny? No lingering effects of the coma?”

She considers. “Not that I can tell, other than being really tired. Harry hasn’t let me leave the bed yet, but he says my physical state is good, considering the circumstances.” She rolls her eyes. “Which means anything from I can join you tomorrow or I’m going to spend the next year in PT.”

“Don’t push yourself too hard,” he says seriously. “I want you on my team, but I don’t want you hurting yourself more.”

Alanna groans but agrees. After a moment of comfortable silence, she finally asks, “How did Dad die?”

Their relationship with their father has always been complicated. Nick had strived his entire life to gain his father’s approval, not even knowing he had had it all along. He had joined the Alliance, trained to be a Marine, even applied for N school in the hope that by having more things in common with his father would actually earn his respect. He was more relieved than he let on when he was denied, and was perfectly content at his glorified desk job. His dad didn’t seem to care one way or another, but after viewing his memories, feeling what he felt- Nick’s mother had always said Alec had been a complicated man. Nick didn’t quite fully understand him, but he at least finally respected where he came from.

Nick winces. He knew the question was coming, but wished it hadn’t. “He saved my life,” he admits, voice wavering. “We were knocked off a platform when the Vault on Habitat Seven malfunctioned. My helmet was shattered- I couldn’t breathe. Dad just… he took one look at me, and gave me his helmet.” Alanna’s hand creeps into his own, and he grips it tightly. “I didn’t see him die. Lexi says the Nexus still has his body, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t bring myself to do a funeral yet, you know?”

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “He always said he wanted to die amongst stars no human had ever seen before. I just wish…”

“That it hadn’t happened quite so soon,” Nick finishes, and his twin nods.

“Go be a hero,” she had said when he finally told her he had to go. “But come back to me, alright? I need my little brother there when I make my dramatic return to the frontlines.” 

He had smiled and hugged her tightly. “No one else I’d rather have watching my back.”

So he had left his sister in the medical bay to recover- but when gets onboard the Tempest, his sister is also there, arm wrestling Liam. Peebee is on Liam’s side while Gil is on Alanna’s, and Jaal has stayed neutral but watches raptly. When Alanna slams Liam’s arm down on the table, Gil cheered. 

“Two out of three! I win!” Alanna shouts, getting up and doing a celebration dance. 

Jaal looks excited. “My turn! You’re going down.”

“You wish, Ama Darav,” she taunts. “I know all the ways to take you down.”

He makes a noncommittal noise. “Your Jaal, maybe. Not me.”

They square off, and Nick took a moment to study this twin. The Alanna he has just left had a brave face on, but there was no denying the circles under her eyes, the pallor to her skin, the way her limbs trembled whenever she put her weight on them for longer than a few seconds. Even so, she was still Alanna: optimistic, quick to make a joke, and more importantly she is willing to see the best of everything.

The Alanna in front of him is healthier, and more athletic than she had ever been in her life. She is also harder, fierce, and when his twin would have hesitated before pulling the bullet, the woman in front of him has no qualms with killing. Most importantly, she kept secrets from him.

And that is what the entire situation had boiled down to. They had shared everything growing up—a room, friends, complaints about their parents, who they had crushes on—and suddenly he is confronted with a sister who doesn’t share with him. This Alanna hasn’t done anything wrong other than not be what he is expecting.

The guilt still nags at him despite the fact that Alanna seemed to have forgiven him. With all that he has seen here, the way the Vaults had almost instantly fixed the atmosphere, it isn’t too far-fetched to believe that the remnant machines could also travel between dimensions- after all, the creators did vanish without a trace. Who’s saying they didn’t just leave the galaxy, but this dimension as well?

But when confronted with a sister who doesn’t share her experiences, who seems scared to even talk about them, and doesn’t confide in him—it hurt. And he had taken it out on her when he told himself that she wasn’t his actual twin.

It hasn’t been fair to her, and he regrets that he wasted all that time. There is nothing he can do now but make it up to her.

Nick smiles when Alanna slams Jaal’s arm down on the table. “Ha! I win again!” she crows. 

“Pressure points are cheating!” Liam says in Jaal’s defense.

Alanna ignores him and keeps her saccharine sweet smile aimed at Jaal. “Every. Trick,” she reiterates. “Sure you want to go another round?”

The Angara looks fascinated and disturbed. “I yield.”

“Arm wrestling championship title still held,” she cheers, then saunters off.

Jaal shakes his head. “She is scary.”

“Totally, dude,” Liam agrees. “No wonder your alternate self practically put a ring on it.”

 _That_ startles Nick out of his musings. “He what? _You_ what? Jaal, did you bang my sister?” 

Liam makes a guilty face, but Nick is too busy wondering just how avoidant he has been. Surely he would have noticed if something like that had happened, no matter how much he was intent on pretending Alanna didn’t exist.

“My alternate self has, multiple times, if I know myself,” Jaal says matter of factly. “In fact, if I’m guessing correctly, the first time was probably-”

“No, no, I’m not listening,” Nick exclaims, putting his hands over his ears and speed walking out of the room. “Lalalala, go back to your arm wrestling!”

Peebee waves her hand. “Ohhhhhh, me me me me me! Me next!”

The door slides shut behind him and he shudders. He really didn’t want to think of his sister doing… that, no matter who with. 

He spends the rest of the time preparing for the run on Khi Tasira, only stopping when a new email pings his inbox. Harry has sent him a picture of Alanna in PT—she is running away from her trainer. He smiles despite himself.

“Ready to go, lil bro?” 

He turns to see his other twin leaning against the door of his room. She is once again armored up—While he, Jaal, Drack and Cora are making up the main assault team, she, Liam, Peebee and Vetra are to take the opposite path and activate the other console. Hopefully by splitting up, it will not only confuse the Kett, but also make their trip that much faster.

“Been ready,” he confirms. He closes the email and picks up his helmet. “Let’s do this.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I can’t do this.”

Alanna is pacing in Nick’s room, since he is on the Hyperion visiting his twin. SAM’s interface spins serenely, doing nothing to calm her. “Cannot do what?”

“Just… this. Everything.” She waves her arms around. “SAM, I know what’s going to happen. Or at least, I knew. I successfully prevented the Archon from finding out about you, so the other Alanna is safe. But that doesn’t prevent the Archon from still attacking the Hyperion. And I could warn Nick, but what’s going to stop the Archon from targeting him? He doesn’t know jack squat about me, but Nick? Nick is going to be prime target number one. He knows he can interface with the Remnant. He saw him activate the map to Khi Tasira. It’s… SAM, I don’t want to see my little brother tortured again.”

She flops down onto the chair. “I need to stop this.”

“You do need to calm down,” SAM agrees. “Your worrying has already increased your already high stress levels, and- oh. You meant the Archon.”

“Of course I meant the Archon!” she replies. “I can’t just stand by and let this happen!”

The AI’s voice is surprisingly gentle. “You said it yourself, Alanna. You don’t know what’s going to happen. No one would fault you for that.”

“But what would that make me, SAM?” her voice is pleading. “If I had a chance to help, and didn’t take it?”

SAM is quiet for a moment. “What do you propose?”

“I can’t let the Archon have Nick,” she replies determinedly. “Not again. This universe needs their Pathfinder. I can warn him, but he might not fully believe me, or try to stop me.” She pauses. “SAM, can you record my memories, too?”

 

The AI sounds wary. “Your implant is compatible, but it’s not a complete science. You have to visibly recall the event, and I record it, for lack of a better term. Events upon which I was not present are not fully accurate due to time and perception coloring the actions that took place.”

“Except you were there,” she replies. “For all of them. You have access to my biology- you can make me recall memories.” She braces herself on the table. “SAM, I have an idea. And you have to promise me that you won’t tell Nick.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I want to go to Eos,” Alanna tells Nick three hours later when he finally returned.

He looks confused. “Why? It’s doing well and hasn’t had any attempted attacks by Roekarr or Kett.”

“You’re just going to be jetting around the system placing probes,” Alanna reminds him. “I’m not needed, and quite frankly, I want to see if anyone here maybe found something I can use back in my universe. Plus,” she shrugs, “I just want to… explore again, you know?”

The confusion changes to worry. “You know I’m sorry for how I treated you, right? You didn’t deserve it and-”

“I know,” she says. “And I don’t hold it against you. I just… need real air for a while, you know?”

Nick nods. “Yeah, I understand. And I’m sure Bradley will appreciate an extra pair of hands.”

She is dropped off the next day, and given charge of the Nomad. Alanna had stashed a suit of spare armor—standard Initiative design—within the rover, and weapons. Her custom gear is still safely aboard the Tempest.

“Alanna,” SAM says as they watched the ship fly away. “Are you certain about this?”

“Yes,” she says quietly. “Now, we need to track down some Kett.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The main command center is just where she remembers it, and the kett prove minimal resistance. When the primus comes onto the screen, she interrupts before the Kett can talk. “I’m here to make a deal.”

The Primus narrows her eyes. “Interesting. And here I was going to offer you one. What, pray tell, could you give me?”

“Other than the Archon’s destruction?” Alanna asks. The Primus tenses slightly; the only betrayal of their surprise. Alanna barrels on. “I turn myself over to you, and in return you give Nick the kill codes. The Archon gets my knowledge of Meridian, and Nick comes after me to take down the Archon. You both end up happy, I protect my brother so I’m happy, and we walk away from this to return to shooting at each other at a later date. Capiche?”

It takes a moment for the Primus to respond. “I still fail to see how this benefits you,” she speaks slowly. “Whatever safety your brother has by you turning yourself in will not be worth what the Archon would do to you.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense to you,” Alanna replies, bracing herself on the desk. “It makes sense to me. And it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

“You humans, always relying on hope,” The Primus scoffs. “A useless endeavour, but I will not turn down a willing volunteer. Meet me at these coordinates. And if you should show up with anyone else, consider our ‘deal’ void.” The screen blinks off.

Alanna takes a deep breath, then pushes away from the surface to leave. “SAM?” she asks.

“Yes, Alanna?” The AI is more subdued than usual.

“In the case that I make a huge mistake… can you find a way to deliver a message?”

“Of course. I will ensure that it is sent.”

“Good.” She blinks back tears. “Now let’s go pay the Kett a friendly visit. Tell… tell Nick I’m sorry, okay?”

“You’ll be able to tell him yourself, Alanna.”

“Appreciate the support.” She is going to need it. And a great deal of luck.


	8. Chapter 8

“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Nick demands.

Bradley looks apologetic and very uncomfortable. “She said she had registered an anomaly and went to investigate. That was three days ago.”

“There’s still no cause for alarm,” Liam adds, but even he doesn’t sound completely convinced. “It does take awhile to get anywhere on this planet.”

Nick glances over at him. “Her comm signal has vanished, Liam. Either she went radio silent, which is unlikely, or she’s not on planet.”

Cora speaks up. “We can have SAM scan the planet. The Tempests scanners would have a higher chance of finding her.”

“That is not necessary, Lieutenant Harper,” SAM tells her. “I have information on Alanna’s whereabouts.”

Nick sighs in relief. “Thank the stars. Where is she, SAM?”

“It would be easier to show you, Ryder. There is a personal message for you at your terminal.”

Even Liam looks confused, but some news is better than no news. “Alright. Just… SAM, let me know: is she okay?”

“As of right now, I have no idea.”

Not feeling in the slightest bit relieved, he hurries to the Tempest. Cora stays behind to further question Bradley, while Liam follows behind at a slower pace, no doubt to alert the rest of the team. Only Kallo witnesses his quick race to his room, the Salarian’s questioning gaze doing nothing to slow his pace.

“There’s nothing here, SAM,” he says after activating his terminal.

SAM sounds apologetic. “I am sorry for misleading you, Nick, but I was under specific instructions.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, a ball forming in his stomach.

In reply, the SAM node at his terminal flickers, and a holographic form of Alanna is shown instead. She is standing at imperfect parade rest, and the ball grows heavier. “Hey Nicky,” her form says softly. “You’ve probably realized I’ve gone missing by now.”

The image wavers—either she has moved, or the message is skipped. “I’m sorry for making you worry. If there was any other way to make sure that things end up better this time, I would have done it. But there isn’t any other way. 

“The things I saw, the things I went through- I don’t want you to go through that, Nicky. SAM knows. He calculated that my plan had a eighty-five percent chance of success—but we Ryders have always beaten the odds. The way might be unconventional, or crazy, or downright mad, but they’re always a success. Just look at Meridian. Any other person would be dead.

“Except, you bit off more than you can chew, Nicky. We both did. The Archon isn’t one to be underestimated, and the battle for his ship was only the start of the true war. If I hadn’t acted… he’s capable of so much pain, Nicky. I had to spare you from that.

“By the time you get this message, I would have already surrendered myself to the Archon. He will force me to tell him where Meridian is- but you know how to find it, Nicky. I know you’ll figure it out. And I won’t be alone- I’ll have SAM. So don’t worry about me, Pathfinder. Because at the end of this, humanity will have their Golden World.”

Her figure smiles, a brave front- then vanishes. 

All the wind is knocked out of him. Alanna had sacrificed herself- for him? A man who iasn’t truly her brother, for a universe that isn’t her own? “SAM?” he asks, voice hoarse. “Why?”

“She believed that this was the best way to minimize casualties, Nick,” SAM replies. “Before she left, she shared her memories- and while I cannot completely agree with her methods, I understand her reasoning.” The AI pauses while Nick processes. “She gave her permission to share them with you, should you request it.”

That startles him. “Just like with dad?”

“Not as extensive, but yes. She shared only what she thought was important for you to understand.” SAM sounds… hesitant. That alone is enough for Nick to worry even more. “It is not… pleasant.”

“I need to know,” he says, desperate. “I need to know why she would do this.”

SAM is quiet, but the memories start immediately. He sees her hanging suspended in the air engaged in a battle of words with the Archon—he injects her with some sort of tracker, and Nick watches as she agrees to SAM’s suicide. The memory skips, and then she is on Khi Tasira, watching as the Remnant ships fly—and then intense pain, the Archon mocking her, and that terrifying blackness again. Her using a console to activate a Remnant fleet, her head splitting in pain. Then entering a large Remnant vault, seeing the Archon, and then himself strapped to a chair, being tortured. 

When they stop, he was curled on the floor, tears streaming from his face. There is a banging on the door—Cora, shouting in alarm. “Lexi, he’s screaming! We need in there!”

“Hold on, overriding access codes!”

The door opened, and Cora barges in, immediately taking him in and falling to her knees beside him. “Nick! Are you alright? What happened?”

Lexi is already scanning him with her omnitool. “You are under a lot of stress, Ryder,” she scolds. “More so than normal.”

“I’m okay,” he gasps, uncurling slowly from the floor. Cora helps him up, and he shakes off the phantom pains. “I’m okay.”

“Ryder,” Cora says, concerned, eyes tight with worry. “That didn’t sound like you were okay.”

He doesn’t reply, taking the moment to catch his breath. When he finally feels himself again, he straightens, bracing himself against Cora’s upper arm. Her other one covers it, giving him a gentle squeeze. “Alanna gave me her memories of fighting the Archon,” he explains. 

“Gave you her memories? How the hell?”

Startled, the three turn at the sound of Peebee’s voice to see the rest of the team crowded in the doorway. The Asari in question shrugs. “You were being loud,” she says.

“And we were worried,” Drack adds.

Nick sighs, but the support of his team makes him smile. “I’m not sure how the whole memory transfer things works,” he admits “But Alanna showed me her experience in her universe. It’s… bad.”

“Bad how?” Vetra demands.

Nick gets to his feet. “Bad as in we need to warn the Nexus that the Archon will make a direct assault on it to take the Hyperion.”

Vetra swears and runs off- Cora looks a little pale but nods firmly. “I’ll alert Director Tann,” she says. “What other preparations do we need to make?”

“Until Suvi finishes the map of the scourge our hands are tied,” he admits. “But put out a call for allies. Anyone we can find- we’ll need all the help we can get if we plan on attacking the Archon headon.” 

The team hurries off, and Cora gives Nick’s hand one final squeeze before moving to do her own tasks. Lexi stays, a disapproving frown on her face. “Ryder, your hormones are completely out of balance and your brain waves are off the charts,” she says. “It wasn’t this bad since Habitat Seven.”

When he died. The moments immediately before and after the event are still fuzzy- more often than not it features in his nightmares. But if his body thought it was once again dying while viewing Alanna’s memories, it would certainly explain Lexi’s concern. 

“I’ll explain later,” he says, heading out the door. “Right now we need to ensure that the Nexus and the Hyperion are safe, and go rescue my sister.”

Though Lexi clearly disapproves, she couldn’t do much short of declaring him medically unfit for duty and passing temporary command to Cora. But with Cora unable to commune with the Remnant, and Nick possessing knowledge that is literally game-changing, she knew it would do more harm than good.

“I’m going to be requiring at least a month’s worth of leave after this is over,” Lexi threatens. “No arguments.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Doc,” he replies, and means it.

A break sounds wonderful.

Especially after he contacts Tann, who starts preaching and panicking at the same time. “Ryder, we cannot lose the arks,” he stresses, hands twitching behind his back. “They power over half the station right now.”

“If we don’t move the arcs the Archon will put thousands of lives at stake,” Nick hisses. “Put all non-essential personnel on the Arcs if necessary, but we have to move them! Every second we stall is one second closer to the Archon arriving!”

Vetra races up the ramp to the comm room. “I just heard from Kandros. He said that APEX is on standby, and any teams that are not currently in a mission are being called back.”

Jaal is right behind her. “The Angaran fleet is also en-route. The main bulk of the Resistance will join us at Khi Tasira, but three fighter squadrons will be there to assist the Arks in their escape and help defend the Nexus.”

“The Angaran resistance is willing to fight for us?” Tann asks, cautiously.

“Yes. They are answering Ryder’s call for help. We owe him a great debt, and while this doesn’t repay it fully, it is a good start.”

Mollified, Tann reluctantly agrees to move the Arcs. Nick sends him coordinates for Angaran space, to be distributed to the various Ark’s Captains.

“What of news from Kadara?” Nick asks once the comm disconnects. 

Vetra shouts out from the floor below. “Sloane says she won’t miss this fight, and will meet you at the base.”

Liam chimes in with the support of the outposts, followed by Drack who is letting his scouts know about the situation. Cora has notified the other Pathfinders, and even Kallo has volunteered some of his pilots and found STG officers who are raring for a fight. Nick’s heart swells. So many people are willing to come together to fight for a home that isn't even theirs yet, and work together to do it. The ties that bind them together are as fragile as a home six hundred years gone, and yet, here they are.

It feels something like hope.

“Kallo, set the course for Khi Tasira,” Nick says. “Every second counts.”

SAM stops him as he heads towards the cockpit. “Ryder, there is one thing you must know. Alanna traded herself for more than your own sister’s protection.”

“What do you mean?” .

“She made a deal with the Primus. In exchange for her telling them the location of Meridian, the Primus gave her kill codes for the Kett. If you use them, you can significantly weaken the forces that you encounter once you reach Meridian. She didn't want you to make this choice, nor did she want word to get out that you dealt with the Kett if you did agree to the deal.”

Nick swallows. “Still feels like she got the worse end of the deal.”

“I am keeping an eye on her, Nick. So far, she is unharmed.” 

That lifts a weight Nick didn't know he was carrying. “Thank you, SAM.”

“Of course. But hurry. She will not stay this way for long.”

“Warning received.”

Kallo is already in motion when Nick finally arrives, deftly navigating through the scourge until he can jump into hyperdrive. “ETA is five hours,” Kallo says before Nick can speak. “There's a shortcut through the Scourge that will save an hour, but there’s a seventy percent chance we’ll end up dead.”

“Stick with your current path,” Nick says. “We can't leave until our allies are assembled anyway.”

Kallo looks relieved. “Acknowledged, Ryder. Suvi, how are those updated star maps coming?”

“Already sent out,” she replies. “All but Sloane and her fighters have received them.”

Nick rubs the back of his neck. “Still doesn't feel right letting the outcasts have them.”

“We have no choice, Ryder,” Suvi says gently. “We can’t have them flying blind.”

He mutters derogatory things under his breath, but doesn’t protest as Suvi sends Sloane the maps.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alanna paces the small space of her cell. Six steps, pivot, six steps again. Other than a bucket for her to do her business, there is nothing else in the room. It is depressing, but with SAM privately relaying the status of the Nexus and Tempest, she barely notices. 

Her door slides open just as SAM is updating her on the status of the APEX teams. An armed force of Kett awaits her, where they immediately handcuff her and drag her away. She allows herself be led throughout the ship and through the tether to emerge onto the Archon’s ship. He is waiting for her, the Primus hovering behind his right shoulder, and another Kett she doesn’t know but has vague memories of killing at some point is on his left. 

“Quite the welcoming party,” she says before anyone else can speak. “Is this the part where you declare me queen and feed me little grapes while fanning me with palm fronds?”

The Archon sneers. “You are a tool, nothing more. Bring her,” he orders the guards. They shove her forward roughly, and Alanna barely stumbles before following.

“Alanna, we appear to be heading to the Archon’s private chamber,” SAM reports. 

“Well if I knew it was this easy to get there, I would have done this the first time,” she replies privately, and she gets the impression that SAM is thoroughly unimpressed. 

When they reach the chamber, the Archon brings her to the map of Meridian. “Show me where it is,” he demands.

Alanna tilts her head. “Where what is?”

“Meridian. Don't play me a fool, you know where it is.”

She sighs. “Pushy.” She takes a step forward, only to be blocked by several Kett guns- impatiently, she pushes them aside. “I can't get to the artifact if you block me!”

They relent after a sharp word from the Archon, and she approaches the artifact. It was a little banged up from the EMP device, but when she raises her hand to activate it, the glowing star map still lights up. Khi Tasira is like a beacon, but she ignores it in favor of a dead zone on the map. “There,” she says, highlighting the correct area. “The Scourge will be tricky to navigate, so either get your best pilot on the job or hope for the best. I can’t give you a path through it though, that’s not my job.”

“You are arrogant for one whose life is in my hands,” the Archon snarls.

Despite the fact that she is about to puke from fear, she refuses to let it show. Alanna smirks, instead. The Archon needs her, and every excuse she can find to taunt him will be worth it. “More like: Your life depends on mine. Without me, you can’t find Meridian.” 

“So I wonder: What do you think happens to you, when your usefulness ends?” The Archon replies, and she is hit across the back of the head, too stunned to reply. “Bring her to the scientists. Keep her alive in case I need her again, but get all you can from her.”

As she is dragged away, Alanna tries to struggle. Pure panic swamps her as she remembers the dead Salarians, and the horror they endured. If they got their hands on her she knew she wouldn’t survive, Archon’s demands or no. And if they find out about SAM… 

Without use of her hands it is impossible to use a mnemonic to help with her biotics, but a blue glow still erupts around her long enough to disorient her captors for her to escape.

“After her!” the Primus shouts.

Gunshots are the only reply.


	9. Chapter 9

The few Kett that remain on Khi Tasira are killed without much ceremony.

APEX goes first, keeping the Kett busy while Nick is dropped off at the new drop point. With Cora and Drack with him, they make short work of the remnant bots and reach the control system.

“So what’s going to happen when we actually find Meridian?” Drack asks. “Go in guns blazing, kick the door down, and rescue the damsel with lots of explosions and ass kicking?”

Nick smirks. “First of all, Alanna has never been a damsel.”

“Heh, that’s true,” Drack laughs.

“Second of all, minimal explosions. We don’t want to kill her trying to save her.”

Drack snorts. “She’s Krogan-hearted, kid, just like you are. A little fire ain’t gonna hurt her.”

Cora slants her gaze to them. “Your idea of a little fire is more than most, Drack.”

“Your idea of a big fire can barely produce heat.”

Nick shakes his head and interfaces.

The map unfolds, beautifully, simply, and more importantly, visibly. Cora’s breath catches as stars unfolded around them, and the wonder in her eyes makes Nick smile.

The holographic ships float by, and Drack makes a surprised noise as they pass through them. Solar systems fly by, and then, glowing bright like a lighthouse at sea, sparkles Meridian.

“Coordinates locked,” SAM announces.

Nick’s earpiece crackles. “Ryder! We just got an emergency broadcast from the Nexus,” Avitus exclaims. “Kett ships have been spotted en route; Kandros has already given orders to engage.”

“Is the Archon’s ship among them?”

“Not yet; they look like scouting ships. With luck APEX can destroy them quickly and discourage any retaliation.”

Nick gives a brief sigh of relief. “Don’t show them any mercy. We have Meridian’s location, so with any luck we can have a head start on the Archon.”

“Understood. Passing the word along.”

Nick gestures at his squad mates. “Let’s go.”

Using Alanna’s memories, he locates the console for the Remnant fleet- raising them strained even SAM, and he feels an echo of the excruciating pain that Alanna went through. The sight of the ships send a ripple of awe through his crew. He is vaguely aware of the cheers coming through the comms.

“The Archon won’t know what hit him,” Peebee grins.

Cora is a little more skeptical. “Can you control them?” she asks.

He nods. “They’re mostly automatic. All I need to do is send a direct command and the onboard computer takes over. Vetra, what’s our ally fleet status?”

“APEX has been recalled and everyone is ready to go on your order,” the turian replies. “Suvi has reported that the star maps have been received and Meridian’s coordinates are locked in. The Arcs have been successfully relocated, and all’s quiet by the Nexus.”

“No word on the Kett ships?”

Vetra shakes her head. “Seemed to be scout ships after all.”

Nick lets out a sigh of relief. “Until this is over, keep a strict eye out for any Kett ships. I wouldn’t put it past them to try and attack when they think we’re vulnerable.” 

Cora walks up to him. “We have our allies on the comm. Any words before we head off to war?”

“This won’t be the end,” Nick states after a brief moment of consideration. “But it will be a major victory. We have fought, bled, and sacrificed for this place to be our home, and we aren’t giving up because someone said we should. We traveled six hundred years, left behind family, friends, and loved ones for a chance at a home. Well, now we have it. We have neighbors and new family in the Angara, a foothold in our outposts. Heleus has never belonged to the Kett, and it’s time we reminded them of that!”

The cheers echo, and he turns to his squad. “Now, let’s go kick the Archon’s ass.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Alanna, the Archon has reached Meridian.”

SAM’s announcement stirs her from her sleep, waking up to the cramped space she has made for herself. Outside the containers the growling Wraiths pace. Their masters will be along soon to fetch her, but for now, she is guarded.

“Are the Nexus and Arcs safe?” she asks.

“Yes. Nick got your warning in time and was able to stop the attack before it came. The Archon-” SAM pauses. “He is not happy.”

Memories of the Kett’s smug face when he thought he had won flashes through her mind. “Good,” she says. “Guess it’s time to conveniently show up.”

She uses her biotics to throw the containers away from her. One Wraith yelps, crushed from the attack, but another snarls and leaps. Alanna draws her Angaran firaan out of its holster in less than a second, slashing at the wraith’s stomach as she rolls. It turns back to her, limping, but Alanna throws the knife, embedding it into the wounded creature’s brain. It dies quietly, and she slides the firaan into its holster, hidden away in her boot.

“And that’s why you give a thorough pat down,” she mutters. 

Alanna makes her way through the vents, kicking one out when she finally finds the room she wants. It makes a satisfying clatter when it lands, and the Kett swarm—but she is already gone, breaking into the room next door. She is in the process of getting into her armor when the Kett find her, one greave on and the other dangling from her leg.

“Oops?” she asks with a flutter of her lashes. She’s immediately dragged away.

Her unsecured greave is lost on the way to the Archon, and she is glad she had the foresight to use a basic armor set. Whatever information the Kett gain from it, it won’t be anywhere near what they would have from her regular gear.

She is forced into a chair, the restraints immediately securing her. The Primus rips Alanna’s helmet off, and before she can even blink she is injected with the familiar feeling of a tracer, the Archon suddenly obscuring her vision.

“Let’s see what makes you so special,” he hisses, and a wave of agony overcomes her.

Though she can feel SAM’s tension at the back of her head, the AI is silent. He still does what he can to help her—boosts her hormones, ensures her immune system is enhanced, tries to stimulate her neural response so that it ignores the pain. But too much will alert the Archon, and their hands are tied—both metaphorically and physically.

“My brother’s already on his way here,” Alanna pants, and she can feel the tracer trying to burrow its way into her mind. “You’ve lost.”

Another wave of… of energy, or light, or whatever it was, emits from the Archon’s device. It must be what activates the tracer, because she can feel it, the pain radiating from the inside out. She isn’t sure how the tracer manages to crack open the human mind like it does, but she suspectes it has something to do with exaltation. The thought makes her sick to her stomach.

“You can try and break me all you like,” she snarls, gripping the edges of the chair so hard her knuckles are white. “But I’ve killed thousands of Kett, and I know you can die just as well as them.”

The Archon’s eyes gleam. “And how do you plan to kill me while you are at my mercy?”

“Am I?” Alanna taunts even as her limbs quake. “More like you are at mine. I gave you the location of Meridian. I have the ability to interface with the Remnant. Without me, you wouldn’t be here. So ask yourself this: how do you plan to do this without me?”

The Archon backhands her, sending her reeling. As she works her throbbing jaw, the Archon movs off. “Prepare for battle,” he says, and the Scourge clears as Meridian is revealed. 

Surrounding them is the majority of the Kett fleet, and Alanna hop that the Primus has upheld her end of the bargain and supplied Nick with the codes.

“Hostile ships inbound!” a Chosen nearby cries out, and Alanna lets out a small, victorious grin.

The Archon’s blank expression nearly brakes to show the anger that lies beneath it. He snaps something in his tongue that doesn’t quite translate, but it is clear enough when the windows in the front of the ship are replaced by a screen that bore Nick’s face.

“Looks like you’re out of luck,” her twin says, and like an avenging angel, she can see the Tempest emerge from the Scourge with her remnant and ally fleet in tow. “Just remember: You brought this upon yourself.”

“You mistake a battle for the war,” the Archon growls back. “Meridian will be mine, and your race will be nothing but the dust from which you came.”

Alanna laughs. “Then we’ll just make you allergic to dust, you asshole.”

“Alanna! You all right?”

“Just peachy,” she replies. “The hospitality leaves a little to be desired, though.”

The Archon steps in front of her to shield her from Nick’s view. “Enough of this… farce,” he sneers. “Your sister will break, and you will learn that your resistance was ultimately futile.”

The screen blinks out, and Alanna is left seething in her chair. “So far all I hear is talk,” she snaps. “There’s nothing you haven’t—”, the searing pain interrupts her, and this one lasts longer than before.

At least Nick or his Alanna doesn’t have to go through this, she thinks, as she struggles not to cry. 

And even though it causes the next wave of pain to be even more intense, she still takes some satisfaction in finally being able to spit in the Archon’s face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the time the Archon’s ship finally reaches Meridian, and Alanna is wrestled out of the chair to bring her to the central control chamber, her limbs won’t respond. 

SAM is working overtime in protecting her vital organs and keeping Nick alive. He keeps her updated with his status, just like he updated Nick with hers, and now that the Tempest is in range, his connection with his central node is stronger. Every request from the Hyperion is on standby or outright denied until the battle for Meridian is over.

Alanna gazes up at the artificial sky of the Remnant seed world, watching as ships battle for control of the artificial planet once more. Battle for her.

“Nick, be careful,” she begs silently before the Vault door slams shut behind them. 

She is dragged to the first console, several Kett carrying machinery and boxes as if they are made of glass following after them. “If I interface, there’s a high chance the Archon will detect my presence,” SAM says.

“He’ll figure out anyway,” Alanna replies, and the ground falls out beneath them as the gravity well activates.

The Kett guards make noises of alarm and confusion, letting go of Alanna as they descend. Since her hands are tied she can’t reach for her firaan, but as soon as her feet touch ground she takes off at an awkward lope, dodging down slightly familiar halls and pathways.

After the Archon had been killed and Meridian claimed for the Initiative, the first thing the scientists did was map out the seed world. It had taken longer than they expected and wanted, but eventually a complete, if confusing, map had been constructed.

Alanna has only memorized a part of the sprawling architecture; the frantic, adrenaline and fear fueled race to save her brother, and the small area that had been found under the Hyperion. The things she had recovered from even that tiny area would take years for the scientists to translate and understand, and they had an entire planet to explore. So it is no surprise when she realizes she is very, very lost.

“You can run all you like,” the Archon taunts, disturbingly inside her head. Had he somehow gained access to the implant already? Or is he somehow talking through the tracer? “But you have nowhere to go. Even your… AI? Clever. Even your AI does not understand the potential of what Meridian has to offer.”

Alanna grits her teeth. “We understand better than you,” she snarls back, and lunges for the first console she finds during her flight.

She loses herself in the mechanics immediately, her and SAM diving into the interface. Meridian spreads out before them, and Alanna immediately pinpoints the nodes for Observers. She activates them, SAM giving the IFF code—and then she is jerked out of the interface, temporarily blinded and paralyzed from the sudden disconnect.

When her vision clears she has been hog-tied and slung over some boxes, reclaimed by the Kett once more.

But she is still connected to the Observers.

Alanna closes her eyes, and she and SAM surrender to the data still flowing through their minds.

The Observers become their eyes and ears, fanning out from their point of origin to locate them. It is easier than thought: the Kett are identified as Foreign, as Anomalies in the Code, but they don’t activate the defense sequence. Instead, they mark the path; silent sentinels to lead Nick to the chamber.

In the back of her mind, she can feel the strain of controlling so many remnant. SAM cannot handle helping both her and Nick. Yet he persists, and the only pain comes from her restraints and the Archon’s device.

By the time the pain from the tracer has fully registered, the Observers have gained their orders and are prepared to follow them. Unfortunately for her, she opens her eyes to the control center.

“At last,” the Archon says. “Meridian will be mine.”

Alanna is wrestled into the same chair she was secured into onboard the Archon’s ship, but she fights the entire time. “You won’t win,” she snarls. “Nick is coming, and—”

It seems the Archon’s plan to shut her up is simply to activate the tracer, which is still working its merry way through SAM’s encryptions. She can fight it off, but lose access to the Remnant, or focus more on the Remnant, but let the Archon access SAM.

In the end, she has no choice. If she doesn’t concentrate on the Remnant, she can’t help Nick. And while the Archon could access SAM, he can’t control the AI, especially since his central node is safe on the Hyperion.

And suddenly, she can feel Nick with her.

Alanna gasps, clinging to her brother’s presence, even if he isn’t fully aware that she is there. SAM must be connecting them somehow- she isn’t going to argue. It bolsters her.

“Nick! The Archon, he’s trying to use Meridian as a weapon!” she warns. She doesn’t so much speak it as wills the words through the implant. “Follow the Observers. If the Archon takes control, he’ll—” she screams as the tracer, now with full access to her nervous system, lights her entire body on fire.

The response is immediate.

SAM surges through her body, breaking away from Nick to devote his attention fully to Alanna. The tracer is destroyed mercilessly, but before she can move from the chair, the Archon gains access to Meridian.

“You are too late,” the Archon taunts as Nick, Cora, Jaal and Drack burst through the door. “I have control, and soon, this system will be nothing but ashes.”

Alanna locks eyes with Nick. And though he looks upset, he nods—he knows he can’t fight this alone.

“SAM?” she asks.

“Already done,” he replies.

This close to the core of Meridian, they don’t need consoles. Together, AI and human become a part of Meridian, fighting back in perfect sync.

With the Archon having control of the bots, Alanna takes control of the environment. Walls spring up to protect her family, bridges form over gaps. And the more robots they destroy, the more control Alanna gains, and the less power the Archon is able to access.

“Burn, you bastard,” she mutters, her hand gripping the handles of the chair tightly as the terrain seethes around them.

The Archon is still confident enough to be gloating, but she can tell he is struggling. The strange orange glow that announces his connection to Meridian is wavering, splintering and shredding to keep a handle on something. With Alanna so tightly woven into the benign systems, he hasn’t noticed her surrounding him until it was too late. 

“No! It shall not end like this!” the Archon howls, and Nick comes barreling through the matrix, his shining gold lighting up the entire network.

“Meridian is online,” SAM announces, and Alanna could feel the joy radiating through the link with SAM.

She untangles herself from the system. Walls slide back into place, bridges deform, the central command shifts into a pattern that causes the flow of power to be routed to the Vaults.

When she surfaces, she finds the team surrounding her, her head in Nick’s lap and Cora already calling for Lexi. “Is he dead?” she asks, a lingering fear still sitting heavy in her chest.

“See for yourself,” Nick replies. He sounds like he’s been crying. She sits up to look over his shoulder.

The Archon lies crumpled on the floor, the wires and cords tangled and splayed beneath him like broken wings. “May he rot in hell,” she spits, then wearily gets to her feet.

Nick holds his hands out to steady her in worry, but Alanna is surprised at how stable she is. The concern melts into giddy relief. “We did it,” Nick breathes.

And as Alanna looks around at everyone’s smiling faces, and hears the cheers she over the comms, she knows that she made the right choice.

“Welcome home,” she beams.


	10. Chapter 10

She and Nick step out of the Tempest, being greeted by Suwaan. “We saw what happened on the machine world,” he says. “While we have been untouched by the Kett, we know what they did to our kin. We are grateful that you are our allies.”

“It’s only a matter of time before the Kett return,” Nick replies with a formal bow. “But first, we need to get Alanna home.”

Suwaan inclines his head. “Of course. The Shrine is active now.”

As they head off towards the cave system, Alanna notices new Angarans are sprinkled in amongst the locals; they stand out without the robe-like garments. It makes her smile.

Then again, with the giddy feeling swelling in her chest, anything can probably make her happy.

She is finally going home.

When they enter the cave, she is relieved to see the walls glowing green and the haze gone. Without the urgency of her prior visits, she is able to appreciate her surroundings more, inspecting the architecture, wondering what places the closed doors hide, eyeing the machinery with interest. Alanna knows she’ll have to explore more when she gets home, after she spends a solid day in bed, of course.

“This place is amazing,” she says. “Have you let any scientists in yet?”

“Very few, and under strict supervision,” Suwaan replies. “When you came to us the first time, we realized how little we knew about the place we were guarding, and if we weren’t careful the same fate could befall one of us. Your Moshae has been instrumental in figuring out its secrets.”

Even Nick looks intrigued. “Is she here?”

“She has been recalled to Aya. But some of her students remain.”

They reach the chamber Alanna remembered, and the console is glowing softly. A small ball of light sits above it, complicated geometric shapes shifting within it.

“Well, this is it,” Nick says as Suwaan discretely lets them be. “I bet Jaal’s been missing you.”

“I’ve missed him,” she confesses quietly. Then, on an impulse, she throws her arms around Nick. He doesn’t hesitate in hugging her back. “I’ll miss you too,” she says. “I missed having you there for me.”

Nick swallows, trying not to cry. “I’m glad you were, even if I didn’t show it at first.”

 

She rolls her eyes and pulls away slightly. “It’s okay, Nick. I’ve forgiven you. Just make it up to me and bring me everywhere for me, okay?”

“As if you’d let me do anything but,” he retorts, and smiles at her laugh.

She moves to interface with the console, and the ball of light shifts and expands. A strange network of lines appear, with a single point of light shining brighter than the others. “Is this where we are currently?” she asks.

SAM answers. “Yes. It appears that you need to complete the circuit.”

“I need to touch it?” Alanna asks, skeptically.

“Yes. However, before you do so, you must know that everything that happened here will likely be forgotten.”

Both twins are stunned. “How is that possible?” Alanna asks.

“You were never meant to be here,” SAM replies. “The Universe is already suffering from an imbalance in entropy: The technology here is incomplete, but it appears it was meant to be used as an exchange. For you to come here, the other Alanna must go there, but when only one part is activated, the system sought out the next best thing.”

Nick realizes what he is saying. “Me activating the Vault of Voeld. Since this place is somehow connected to Meridian, it must have picked up on my DNA as similar.”

“And because you weren’t here, the exchange wasn’t able to take place,” Alanna finishes.

SAM’s voice is quiet. “I don’t know what that means for this Universe, but from what I can gather the events won’t be rewritten, simply… misremembered.”

“But how?” Nick asks. “We can’t just not remember something.”

“You don’t notice it, but there has been a subtle strain on your physiology ever since Alanna arrived here,” SAM explains. “There have been subtle changes in brain waves for all team members except Jaal, who has experienced a slightly different bioelectrical signature. My hypothesis is that when Alanna leaves, your brain waves will revert to normal, but in doing so will cause the memory of her presence to be reset as well.”

Alanna swallows. “So everything will be undone? Nothing I did will even matter?”

 

“On the contrary, history will stay the same,” SAM corrects. “But the blank spots that you occupied will be filled in with simple human ingenuity. You should not exist, so you will not: but people will still remember your deeds being done.”

She and Nick share an uneasy glance. “So people will simply remember what they think makes sense,” her twin clarifies.

“Correct.”

“This is making my head hurt,” Alanna groans. “But… SAM, does this mean that the same amount of time has passed in both our universes?”

“I am not sure,” SAM replies. “Considering that you traveled back in time to get here, it could be that time moves faster in your Universe. But this is an incomplete network, as if it was abandoned during construction- there are sequences I cannot understand or are incomplete.”

Nick is quiet, staring intently at the glowing path of lights. Finally, he speaks. “Do it.”

Alanna looks at him. “Nick?”

“You need to go home, Alanna,” he replies, gently. “You have your family there who no doubt miss you, and you miss them. I can see it. Even now you’re smiling.”

She knows he was right. “But… forgetting you…”

“I’ll still be with you, Alanna,” he reminds her. “I may be a little under the weather right now, but as soon as Harry releases me from the med bay, I’ll be with you.” Nick smirks. “Bring me everywhere with you for me, alright?”

 

She blinks back tears but gives a radiant smile. “I will.” He offers his hand, and she grips it tightly. “See you soon, Nick.”

Alanna releases his hand, then turns to the orb. She extends her hand- 

The backlash knocks Nick from his feet, but when he finally gets up, he is alone.

He shakes his head, blinking the spots from his eyes, when Suwaan and his guards run in. “Pathfinder,” he says, seemingly surprised to find the room still intact. “What happened?”

“Not sure,” he admits. “I was inspecting the room when it sort of… exploded?”

The Angara looks troubled. “Perhaps we accidentally triggered something earlier during our studies. We apologize.”

“No need,” Nick says. “I’m fine.” He heads towards the exit. “If you don’t mind, I need to send reports to the Nexus. And I’ll be sure to… glaze over the details here.”

Suwaan relaxes slightly. “We appreciate it. While we are joyful to see our brethren once again…”

“You are used to being secluded.” Nick gives a small smile. “I understand completely. The Initiative won’t hear about you from me.”

“We thank you.” He bows. “Now, let us show you to your ship.”

Before he leaves, Nick looks back at the room once more. It is quiet, still, without the subtle hum that is present before. Even the console is deactivated.

A small sigh, and then he turns, and doesn’t look back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Is she awake?”

“Alanna! Darling One, can you hear me?”

“It isn’t responding. Perhaps its heart stopped?”

“Everyone, give me space!”

Alanna realizes there are many people around her, but she can’t remember why they are there. Did she fall asleep in public again? That would be embarrassing. Nick just barely let her live down the last time.

“Pathfinder, if you can hear me, you need to wake up now.”

Lexi. Oh dear. Did she fall asleep during the physical?

“I’m awake!” she shouts, sitting bolt upright. Or tries to. There are a pair of arms holding her back, which she recognizes as Jaal’s after a moment of confusion. Except she isn’t on the Tempest’s medbay, she is in a Remnant ruin, with many strange Angara surrounding her.

It takes a moment, but her brain sorts itself out. She was sent here by the Moshae to figure out what was different with the ruin, and when she interfaced with it there was a white flash of light. Then nothing.

“What happened?” she asks, sitting fully upright. Jaal still keeps his arms around her. 

Lexi purses her lips, but it is PeeBee who answers. “We don’t know. There was an energy surge, and then this… cloud appeared. We thought it was like the ones from the Vaults, but it just sorta… swallowed you, and then spat you back out six hours later. SAM said you were fine, but whenever we tried to get to you we got shocked. Badly.”

“Six hours?” she asks, surprised. The aches in her body make it seem like it was much longer. 

Lexi runs out of patience. “And we don’t know what happened during those six hours, so I need to run some tests to make sure she’s still healthy!”

The Angara that is behind Lexi—the elder, Suwaan—makes a noise of protest. “She was sent here to stabilize the Shrine! Until it is fixed—”

“She cannot fix it if she’s dead,” Lexi snaps. “Now let me—”

“Will everyone please be quiet!” Alanna demands. As they were arguing she had been investigating her surroundings, and noticed what no one else had. “Look.”

They do, and see that the room is quiet. Still. Green lights flow where yellow had been before, and the console is dormant. The flickering motes of light are absent, and the haze has cleared. Whatever that cloud had done to her, it had fixed everything. 

Suwaan doesn’t look convinced, but allows Jaal to carry Alanna out of the structure behind Lexi. She leans into Jaal’s embrace, feeling exhausted. “Lexi?” she asks.

The Asari looks back at her. “Yes?”

“After this ordeal is over, I’m on medical leave for two weeks.”

“Understood, Pathfinder.” Lexi’s smile is a beautiful thing to witness.

Afterwards, when Lexi declares her healthy other than a case of mental exhaustion from overworking, and Suwaan is finally satisfied that his people are safe, Alanna is finally ensconced on her room on the Tempest, en-route to Havarl.

“Sahuna says that she will be thrilled to have us for a visit,” Jaal announces from across the room. He is preparing for bed while Alanna unashamedly watches. “And that she will try to keep the family visitation to a minimum to help you recover.”

Alanna smiles. “No need. You know I love your family, Jaal.”

“And I love that about you,” he replies, shrugging on a shirt before crossing the room to her. “Are you certain that you are well, Darling One?”

“I’m perfect, Jaal.” She rolls out of bed and draws him into a willing hug. “I just… felt like this was needed. Deserved, even.”

He laughs. “I am not the person to deny you rest, Alanna. I just hope that soon, every day can be like this.”

“Until then, we have now,” she sighs, and together, they watch the stars drift by them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You’re alive!”

Nick nearly stumbles when Alanna crashes into him, but it only takes a moment before he is hugging her back just as fiercely, a part of his heart finally healing now that he knows she is safe.

As soon as he pulls away from her, she reels her arm back and punches him in the shoulder. Hard. “Don’t ever do that again, you hear me? At least, not without me there to watch your back.”

He swallows his retort- _but you would have been in danger_ \- and shrugs instead. “Well, I was dying of boredom while you decided to play sleeping beauty. I had to do something.”

Alanna gives an inelegant snort. “Right. You rushing off to play intergalactic hero is the best cure to boredom, alright.” Her expression softens. “Are you okay, though? From what I heard through the grapevine, it was… rough.”

He gives a strained laugh. “Yeah, that’s an understatement. I’m glad you were safe, though.”

“I’m the big sister,” she she replies, sadly. “I’m supposed to look after you.”

“Consider it returning the favor.” He tugs lightly on her ponytail. “You saved me from schoolyard bullies, I saved you from alien terrorists.”

Alanna makes a face. “Big difference, you know.”

They sit down together on a nearby bed, him with his arm around her shoulder. Alanna seems surprised, but pleased, with the show of affection, leaning into his side. “I’ll tell you about it later,” he promises. “It’s… a lot. And I’m still processing.”

“Meridian is beautiful,” she says softly. “It doesn’t seem right for humanity to claim it, though.”

“I don’t intend for them to,” Nick states firmly. “If I have any say about it, all species will be welcome. Regardless of the galaxy of origin.”

Alanna looks intrigued. “You’re talking about the Angara, right? I heard they’ve moved onto the Nexus, but I haven’t been able to go far from the med bay.”

“You’ll like them.” Movement from the entrance catches his eye, and he smiles. “In fact, there’s one here now.”

Jaal approaches them, looking around with unabashed curiosity. The civilians who are there look back in confusion and some fear, while a girl with red pigtails sitting on her mother’s lap lets out a huge gasp and says, in a loud whisper, “Mama! It’s a pink alien!”

The Angara smiles at them, giving the little girl a wave before turning to them. “Captain Dunn gave me a tour,” he rumbles. “For such a small woman, she is very fast.”

“She doesn’t believe in wasting time,” Nick agrees. “Thanks for meeting me here, Jaal.”

“It is no problem. Although I am concerned that everything is so… white. Do your sick not like color?”

Alanna laughs. “It’s easier to navigate if it’s white, or so I’m told. Though personally I could use a few more flowers.” 

Jaal frowns. “Was I supposed to bring some?”

“I was joking.” She looks at him in fascination. “Do all Angaran eyes look like galaxies?”

The Angaran blinks, and Nick almost smirks at the slight purple flush that graces Jaal’s face. “I don’t know. Do all humans have eyes that look like the sky over Eos?”

“Then Nick’s must look like Eos’ swamp,” she grins.

Nick makes a sound of mild protest, but they ignore him. “Eos doesn’t have swamplands,” Jaal says seriously. “Havarl, however, does.”

“I need to see pictures.” Alanna is practically bouncing on the bed at the possibility. “Reports do not do your planet justice.”

Jaal pulls up his omnitool, sitting down on Alanna’s other side. “I have plenty. It is a small world, but beautiful. The bioluminescence at night inspired many works of poetry among our artists…”

Nick gets up, knowing they won’t even notice that he is gone. At the door he pauses, looking back at them, and smiles at Alanna’s rapt expression, unconsciously leaning into Jaal’s side. He seems more than happy with her there. 

“I did not think this plan of yours would work,” SAM says on their private channel. “The trials that their alternate selves went through were completely unique, and for them to have that same connection here is slim.”

He hums, turning to walk to the cryo bay proper. When he and his alternate twin had realized she would be forgotten, SAM had backed up all the memories of their encounter. Memories were one thing, but according to SAM, coding was an entirely different matter. Nick still can’t quite recall her, but SAM can, and is more than willing to remind Nick of what truly happened. At first he hadn’t wanted to remember—the fact that parallel universes existed, coupled with the memories of what he had gone through elsewhere—was a bit too big for his mind to really understand. But SAM had argued a good point: There were things the other Alanna had experienced that he could learn from.

So he agreed. While the rest of his crew and the Initiative think he has uncanny good luck and mysterious allies, he and SAM know otherwise. 

And it is the least he can do to bring happiness to one of the two people that mean most to him in the world, and his good friend.

When he ends up at his mother’s cryo pod, he sits down beside it and closes his eyes, leaning back against the side. For a moment he simply breathes—it is nice to just exist and not worry about anything. 

Perhaps Alanna was right. He was becoming too much like their dad.

He pulls up his omnitool and considers. Then makes the call.

“Hey, Cora? Was just wondering if you had some time for drinks.”


End file.
